Falling Leaves
by T0PH4T
Summary: Or when a regular human being got dropped into a life-or-death situation and chose death, but didn't. [Now dead, with notes about how it could've ended] [Up for adoption, willing to beta for anyone who wants to.]
1. Chapter 1

I wake up to cold.

I don't _wake up_ cold. That's what happens when I forget to pull blankets over me before I fall asleep after a long day of classes, or when I leave the window open when it's snowing. When I _wake up_ cold, I'm shivering and half-numb, ready to find a shower head and let near-boiling water pour over me and restore feeling to my limbs.

When I wake up _to_ cold, that's more like getting a bucket of water thrown on me. Except this time I'm getting thrown into the water.

"Fucking _what_?" I shout, jumping _away_ from the cold thing on the ground and brushing at the remnants of whatever it was. Man, was it a liquid? Because my pants are _soaked_ now. This is going to be a pain.

Then I pick up on my surroundings. White. White everywhere, punctuated by black. Black trees, dead as doornails, and white snow, rapidly soaking my pyjamas. A desolate little winter wonderland.

See, that's when I start feeling the tell-tale signs of panic. My heart starts pounding, hands get twitchy, perspiration, the works. Because being outside in the winter? A great way to die. People go out into snow storms, sit down for a rest, and never wake up all. The time. People go out in places they know like the back of their hands, _and they still die of hypothermia_.

This place? It doesn't look familiar. It doesn't look like anywhere I've been, or anywhere I've heard about. I don't know any black-barked trees, and none native to home. That, and for night it's too bright. Like it's a cheap horror-movie night where the set designers can't be bothered to shoot in the dark until they get something half-decent.

I look up and see stars. So many it's hard to believe. More than I've ever seen, even during backpacking trips with Dad, outshining the shattered moon that hangs in the sky like-

The moon's broken.

Wait.

No.

What?

I stand there, the melting snow slowly pruning my feet as I try to wrap my head around the broken moon, the panic fading away as I take it in. It's beautiful, in a H.R. Giger sort of way. One hundred percent unnatural, but more significant for it. Then some pieces fall into place.

The real moon is intact. RWBY's moon is not. I do not do hallucinogenic drugs, nor do I get pressured into them. No one wants to kidnap me, nor have I offended anyone enough to get my throat slit.

I am on Remnant. In the winter. In the middle of a forest. In my pyjamas.

I may die.

That last thought is a _terrifying_ one. I feel my breath come faster. Ah, there's the panic. No no no, that's a bad idea, chill out or else the Grimm will come and eat you. Why does that not make me not panic!? Okay, coping mechanisms. Jokes. Do jokes. The one about the perfect world being policed by the British, fed by the French, run by the Swiss? Or is it the Italians? Damnit, Fibonacci come to my aid.

I kneel down, ignoring the snow on my knees, and shove a handful of the cold white powder into my face. 1 and 1 is 2, 1 and 2 is 3, 2 and 3 is 5, 3 and 5 is 8, 5 and 8 is 13, 8 and 13 is 21...

After I redo 196418 and 317811, I realize my heart rate is back down, that I'm cold, and that I'm sane.

Clarity.

I finish compartmentalizing the panic and fear. Then I get back up to my feet and start thinking. First, I need to survive. That means getting the _hell_ out of these woods and finding a Hunter. Everything else can wait.

I start jogging in a random direction. Not sure which way I'm going, but it's better than staying still and hoping for the best. Maybe. I think the whole "stay where you are in emergencies" thing operates under the assumption that someone's looking for you, so I'm going to keep-

I step on my pant leg and trip.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to try and think.

After I pick myself up out of the snow ( _cold_ ) I notice that my fingernails are bigger than they should be. I was a nail biter, and seeing the clear part go all the way up to the end of my fingers is weird. The base-rate neglect bias there (most people don't chew their nails past the quick), but it's still weird. That, and why do I have my nails back?

I check my forearms. No brown spots.

What?

I rub my upper lip and don't feel any facial hair. A quick check of my nether regions confirms that I'm bare down there.

Okay. So not only am I in Remnant, but I got aged backwards ten years, give or take a few months. Of course. I mean, _why wouldn't_ being transported to another world be accompanied by a nerf? I mean, why would I need some extra leg length and endurance? Being able to run faster wouldn't be helpful _at all_ , and who needs extra body mass to generate heat?

I laugh twice, bitter and angry. How did I end up on hard mode?

Then I do some two digit multiplication in my head. Calm. Clear. No Grimm.

I keep running, holding up my pants so they don't trip me again and stop thinking so hard. I'll find someone or I'll die. It's terrible and scary and unfair but I can't do anything about it.

It's getting colder.

I come across a trail in the woods. Salvation. Two impressions in the snow, probably wheel tracks, with little footsteps between them. I follow the trail, pushing back the chill with hope. Footsteps means people means civilization means towns means food, or at the very least a place to get dry clothes and think.

There! Off in the distance! A barn, worn down but standing. There's a little blond girl walking up to it, dragging a wagon behind her with a bundle of cloth in it. She's struggling against the wind, and my heart goes out to her. It's cold, and she doesn't look older than my body is.

Wait.

A blond wandering through the snow with a wagon in tow?

Yang and Ruby.

I feel something in my chest. Something tender and lonely from the worst days of high school that tells me to to do something, anything. That I need to pay back these fictional-

No. They're not fictional anymore.

This is for keeps.

I start moving before I can think properly. Sprinting in shin-deep snow is hard but doable, even for a kid. More panic. I shouldn't be panicking, shouldn't be attracting the Grimm.

I'm not thinking clearly. It's not stopping me.

"Hey!" I shout, desperation wet and fearful in my voice. "You've got to turn back!" Please please please listen Yang. Please.

The blonde girl doesn't stop moving. Instead, she hunches her shoulders forward and starts _speeding up_. Goddamnit Yang!

I see _things_ are running through the woods. Not things. Grimm. The panic changes. It's less desperate now, and more dreadful. Fear. The primal kind, that doesn't want to go outside at night, even in a suburb, where crime is low and wolves haven't been around for years. The kind that keeps away from strangers, even in safe places.

The kind that Grimm apparently _love_.

There's a howl, and red eyes glint in the forest. Yang stops and turns around. I catch a glimpse of lilac. She needs to run away from the barn.

"Think of Ruby!" I shout, trying to get another little bit of speed out of my legs. I'm closing on her, the wagon an impossible handicap. "The barn is full of them!" I warn. Please let me be there in time. Please. Snow crunches around me, footfalls too heavy to be anything natural. My heart stutters for a moment. More fear. The Grimm follow it.

Wait.

I don't think too hard about my plan. I need fear for it to work.

I juke right, side-stepping Yang. I'm close enough to see the snoozing little girl in the wagon. Black hair, with little red tips.

It's just a glance, but it makes me grit my teeth and run a little harder, powering through the numbness and lactic acid.

"Turn around! Find Qrow!" I shout back. "I'll draw the Grimm!" Then I plunge into my mind. I need fear. Lots of it. That, and every negative emotion I can gather.

Time to go to some dark places.

I drag up my greatest fuck ups into the forefront of my mind. When those stop working, I think of the time I broke a promise that mattered, when I realized I lied to a friend, to my family. I remember being betrayed.

The fear of failure, of being a leech, of not being a decent person, of other people.

All the things that make me feel tired and empty and like life's not worth living. It probably smells like a feast to the Grimm.

I glance over my shoulder and see Yang backpedaling, dragging Ruby away from the pack. Beowolves run past her. My plan worked, apparently. Something to keep in mind for the future.

Now I just need to survive. Like it's that simple.

I zig-zag around the trees, adrenaline redlining my system and getting me to _move_. I hear more howling, close enough to feel it shake my bones, and the sound of branches snapping. Or trees. I don't know how big these things are.

I feel something warm and wet run down my leg.

I dodge right and something big and black with white and red bone plates crashes into the snow next to me. I nearly stumble from the sudden wave of snow, briefly concealing the monster's shape. Then I get a glimpse of one red eye.

You always read about seeing emotion in someone's eye. Humor or danger or mania. I don't buy it. Any emotion you get is in the muscles around the face, the body posture, the angle of their mouth, whatever. I wrote a paper on it. Learned a thing or seven about flirting while I was researching, too.

Apparently Grimm are telepathic, because I see _murder_ in that red orb. Personal, hot and hard _murder_.

I also feel murder when a paw crashes into my side. Something breaks with a wet *snap* and my feet leave the ground.

Weightlessness.

Then I hit another tree and there's more wet snapping. It sounds like branches inside of a water bed. My side. Punctured organs, no broken spine. Small mercies.

I should be in pain. I'm not.

My skin has something hot and wet on it, but I feel cold. More branches break and I muster the energy to look up.

A pack of Beowolves form an arc around me. A trash tier mob, wrecking me. If my brothers could see me now, either of them, they'd be shaking their heads in shame.

The 'wolves close in. I look around, darkness closing in around the edges of my vision. Nothing but black, red, white and death.

Fuck. This is a shitty way to die. I cough up something warm and start losing focus.

Then there's a silver blur weaving between the wolves and suddenly the pack is falling apart. More branches snap, but the sound is sharper. Not branches. Gunfire. I smell something like burning sugar. Pretty sure that's not what gunfire is supposed to smell like.

No more 'wolves. Think I lost some time. I can barely see through my nearly-closed eyes.

There's a guy standing over me carrying a massive scythe. Black hair shot through with grey, red eyes. He's saying something I can't make out. I shake my head and try to point to my

Huh. Now he's got his hands on my chest and I see his lips moving. Can't read them. I think about trying to lift my arm so I can push him away, but it sounds like too much

Pain.

I try to scream, but that only brings more pain. I feel myself shifting inside, little slivers of glass scraping through my flesh and I'm breathless. I can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe _can'tbreathecan'tbreathecan'tbreathe_

Something goes *schlorp* and I heave in air. I let it out in a scream, long and loud, and I can hear again.

"-is a kid doing out here in the middle of the night?" Qrow says, lifting his hands off my chest and sagging a little. I feel my arm _twist_ and I scream again. Jesus _fuck_ how do athletes put up with this level of pain? Qrow keeps talking like I didn't just get into back-to-back car accidents and am feeling it _all over again Jesus FUCK this hurts_. "Listen, your Aura's unlocked, but it ain't everything. You're going to be crashing real soon, so I need you to tell me your-"

That's when my ribs start fusing back together, fire shoots through my bones, and I black out.


	2. Chapter 2

I wake up to quiet.

Sunlight lances into my eyes, and I squint until they adjust. Ugh, how did that even happen? Sunrise isn't until seven at least. I fumble towards the edge of my bed, trying to find my phone. Pain ripples up my side and I stop, hissing quietly. Um, wow, what did I do-

Grimm.

I reach farther forward and roll out of bed. I make a noise somewhere between a scream and a shout. _That_ fucking hurt. Mental note, be more careful about-

Grimm. They mauled me.

I start grabbing at myself. Pleasebeokayandnotcrippled,ribsandarmsandspineandlegsand-

The door opens quietly and I look up to see Qrow, designer bags hanging under his eyes and a frown on his face. Ah. My savior.

"Well, looks who's up and about," he drawls, irritation dripping from every syllable as he walks towards me with slow, heavy steps. Okay, that's not the attitude I expected from the guy who saved my life. Quick, establish rapport.

"... hi," I manage, wincing at the rawness in my throat. Great. Fucking great. Also, how long was I out for?

"Hi yourself," he says dismissively, flopping into a chair by the bed and pulling out a flask as I try to untangle myself from the sheets. I raise an eyebrow (or both, I never learned the secret to raising just one) as he starts drinking. Pretty sure it's not even noon yet. I guess the alcoholic thing really is a problem. After swallowing, he looks to me and his gaze focuses. Those are some scary pink eyes. "So, what's your name?"

I open my mouth, then close it. My real name... doesn't really follow the color rule. Well, my first one doesn't.

"Midas," I say. Pyrrha is an allusion to a Greek myth, so this should work?

"Last name?" he presses. Fuck, right. Brain, go! Come up with something on-theme!

"Laurel. Midas Laurel," I say, this time with more confidence. I'll have to commit to either green or gold at some point, but it's not the worst name in the world. It's certainly better than "Mint." At any rate, Qrow seems to buy it and takes another sip of his drink. I start to stand up, then feel a breeze around my privates.

Ah. Right. They would have to strip me out of my clothes, being all bloody and crap. I flush red and start pulling the sheets into a toga and try to convince myself this isn't that weird, that hospital patients are naked _all the time_ and that I really need to stop freaking out so much _and stop fucking smiling you pedo!_

Qrow laughs as I finish getting decent and stretches his arms out, an audible pop coming from each finger. "Midas, huh? Well, that's a Mistralian name. How'd you end up on Sanus?" His gaze isn't aggressive, but it is curious. Small mercies. I can't tell him the truth. Not yet. I'd lose my credibility, and depending on how dangerous he thought I was I could be up for a long walk off a short path. That, or lots of doctors in white coats and a permanent stay in a rubber room.

"I don't know," I lie and he snorts.

"Yeah right. I ain't gonna report you to the police. How'd you get here?" he asks again, this time a little less nicely. Man, you wouldn't think red-pink eyes would be _that_ bad but _goddamn_ if it isn't making me suddenly fear the color pink.

"I really do not know how I got here," I say carefully, trying not to break eye contact. That's how you convey honesty, right? That, and you don't try to justify? This isn't even a lie.

 _ohmanhesscary_

Qrow lets out a breath and motions to the bed, breaking eye contact as he takes a sip from his flask, then caps it. I sit down, let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, and stare at my feet. Qrow's one of the good guys. On the side of Ozpin, Ironwood, and all those people interested in opposing Salem. He's just got a scary family and some bad luck.

I keep telling myself that. I know it's true. But _fuck_ that's hard to remember when you're looking into two pools of watery blood.

"Got any family?" he asks, voice soft. That'll be something he could appreciate.

I shake my head. "None I can get access to." Not on this plane of existence.

I feel a lot more alone now.

"Money? Resources? A place to stay?" He presses, but gently. The questions are rhetorical but I still shake my head at each one.

Interplanar refugees have it rough. On that subject...

"How does Vale handle orphans?" I ask, mind racing and heart racing. I've got no paper trail, so that would make getting a job hard even if I wasn't eight. That, and I have no idea how Aura interacts with the legal system. If there's not an entire branch of law devoted to criminals with Aura I'll eat my shoes. But I don't have any shoes.

Oh hell. This is bad.

"I was thinking you could stay with a friend of mine for a bit," Qrow says, interrupting my chain of thought. "The, uh, foster system doesn't work too well for kids with Aura," he adds sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away. Right, he unlocked my Aura. That would complicate adoption. Also, I'm no longer homeless thanks to the kindness of strangers?

We don't talk for a bit. I decide to break the silence.

"Thanks," I say lamely. After another moment, I continue. "Uh, who are you planning to..." I trail off.

"Guy named Taiyang," he says.

What.

"He's father of the girls you helped," Qrow continues, taking my silence as a question. "Actually, this is his house." He motions around the room with one hand. "Anyway, he's in a bit of a rough patch right now, and I think another brat to look after could-"

I start laughing. It's high, hysterical, and probably not a great sign for my mental health, but I can't help it. Qrow gives me a weird look, but I can't stop. Fucking _Taiyang_. The guy who got left with a kid from his first fling, then lost his wife to her job less than a decade later?

Yeah, this'll be great. I've always assumed the fandom was exaggerating how bad of a father he was, so maybe this won't be so bad after all. It'll be a learning experience at any rate.

Qrow lets me recover before speaking. "Now that you're done laughing at my best friend," he says casually and I sober up at the note of anger in his voice, "mind telling me how you knew Yang's name?"

Oh hell.

"Supposedly you also knew mine. Knew that I was nearby, too." He hasn't changed his tone, but I start remembering some of his more badass moments. Like that time he started wall running, or when he shattered the stone courtyard in his fight with Winter. "Now, you haven't told me exactly how you came across those facts, but I'm sure you were just gettin' around to it, right?" He leans forward and clasps his hands together. "'Cause if you just happened to know the names and faces of my family, that'd be something I'd have to look into."

Fuck. Implied threat of _extraordinary violence_ is _terrifying_. My mind races. How do I tell him what he needs to know and also keep breathing?

"Ozpin," I say and Qrow stills, his eyes going wide. Thank you mouth, you have saved my life once again. I seize the initiative and start talking, my heart rate spiking as I try to weave together something that lets me leave this room alive. "I have information for Ozpin. His eyes only. I need paper, envelopes and something to write with."

There's a tense silence. My stomach growls. "And food?" I add, a brittle smile coming across my face.

Qrow doesn't say anything as he leaves the room, but when he comes back it's with a legal pad, three used pens, a manila envelope and a packaged baked good. I snarf the snack (ohmygodSUGAR), test the pens, and motion towards the door. Qrow raises an eyebrow.

"You can claim you've got eyes-only stuff, but-" Qrow begins. Fuck. Shock him, get him to believe you.

"You can turn into a crow," I say bluntly.

His eyes narrow. "How'd you figure that out?" he asks, suddenly looming and _holy shit he's tall this was a BAD IDEA_.

I shrink back and try to look as non-threatening as possible. I count to ten. Then I do it again. OPSEC, Ab-Midas (wow, that's going to be weird to respond to). OPSEC. Qrow's smart (and _very_ scary with a very large sword) but three can keep a secret if two are dead.

"That covers stuff that only Ozpin can know," I say slowly. See, I'm giving you information. Now please stop giving off a murder-aura. "The rest of it is very. Dangerous." Like, I'm not sure how bad it would be for Salem to know about Ozpin's little army and his next host, but I'm thinking it would be something like the end of the world.

He stands above me for several seconds just processing.

"Salem," I try. Please.

There is a long silence. Long enough that I want to speak up and make sure that he hasn't forgotten I'm in the room, but moving my arm leads to him reaching under his cape. I go stock till after that.

Eventually, he breaks the silence. "Don't run," he says before striding out of the room and slamming the door shut. I feel my muscles relax, even though the fragile wooden barrier probably wouldn't hold him back for more than a minute.

Why is everything from this cartoon so damn frightening? After a short pity-party I roll my wrist and get to work.

I write down what I know. All of it. While I'm doing it, I think long and hard about whether this is a good idea. I mean, I'm committed now, but it's worth going through the chain of logic here.

Ozpin is... complex. On the one hand, he doesn't do anything wrong. On the other hand, he's also a magical time wizard that's subsumed literally hundreds of people. I imagine it's more complicated than that, but even hardcore futurists would balk a little at that particular brand of immortality. I'm also not sure if he's on humanity's side. He did make the Maidens, he does appear to care for people, and all of his decisions in canon make sense. But if he was really worried about Salem, why didn't he tear her head off _before_ he made the Maidens? Or gather up a posse of silver-eyed warriors and freeze her?

Maybe he made a mistake. Maybe he was never strong enough to fight Salem head-on. Maybe silver-eyed warriors are rare. Maybe he made the Maidens before Cinder showed up. There are a lot of reasonable explanations for why a being who's persisted for thousands of years hasn't made things a perfect utopia.

I shake my head and shake out my hand. Regardless of whether or not there was a better way to do things, Ozpin is in a position to act on this information. While he's not a great example of a ruler, I don't know anything about the governing bodies of Remnant beyond that they're called "Kingdoms" (which historically have have been _very_ hit-or-miss when it comes to quality rulers) and Ironwood is probably still a Captain or something.

I keep writing. Mercury Black, Emerald Sustari and Cinder Fall. What I know about their backgrounds, their weaponry, and how they attack the Fall Maiden. Information about Salem's future inner circle, Adam and the fall of the White Fang (if it hasn't happened already), Leonardo's defection, Roman and Neo's role in it all, and the basic plot of canon RWBY.

Everything I can remember, and footnotes for where my memory fails me and I don't have crystal-clear recollection. Once it's all down I fall back on the bed and try to think about how this could play out.

If Ozpin can find Cinder before she tries to kill the Fall Maiden, everything changes. Probably for the better. If the Fall Maiden has enough backup to beat Cinder, everything changes. Probably for the better. If the White Fang don't go rogue, lots of things change. Maybe for the better. If Roman and Neo get recruited by team Oz instead of team Evil, things change. I think that one's net neutral.

I scrawl down a few other things, too. Protesting tips from Gandhi, MLK, and Malcolm X. Methods of racial integration from American history. Random physics tricks that maybe haven't been developed because Dust is a weird-as-shit power source. How to spin magnets and make electricity. The basic idea behind a coal plant. Any and every weapon I can think of.

I'm not sure how much of it is useful, but if the word "railgun" didn't mean anything before, it sure as hell does now.

Once I've finished I take a look at the fruits of my labor. Ten pages of basically-legible print. More than enough. I put the paper in the envelope, then lick and seal it. The glue still tastes shitty. Then I look at it and think some more.

I cannot undo this. In the Worm-verse, dropping an info-bomb like this on Cauldron would probably lead to Ziz and Contessa shenanigans that would end with me dead. In DC or Marvel comics, something like this could spawn paradoxes that beggar the imagination or simply hasten catastrophes.

But RWBY's different. On one side are ex-terrorists, self-destructive brawlers, well-meaning liars, and ancient arcane forces. Then there are the Grimm. Lines of causality go only forward, no one knows everything, and the good guys are good rather than ethically questionable utilitarians.

I close my eyes and stop comparing fictional works. I'm getting side tracked. That, and one of them isn't fiction.

Time to focus on the core questions only.

If I can't trust Ozpin to use this information, can I trust anyone? If I don't drop the info bomb right now and the Fall Maiden dies because of it, can I honestly say it's not my fault?

I pick up the envelope, walk to the door, and knock. Qrow opens it and I hand him the bomb.

"Ozpin only. Tell him to be very. Careful." Qrow rolls his eyes and tucks it into his back pocket.

"Yeah yeah, top-secret, eat-before-reading. I know the drill," he says, turning and walking off. He stops at the top of the stairs and turns around. "By the way, I forgot to say thanks for saving my nieces."

Right. That. He waits at the top of the stares while I process that.

Wow. Saving people is something I've done.

I think I'll have to get better at it before I try again, because that _sucked_.

Once the pause has gone on for long enough that even I know it's awkward, I realize he still waiting. "Uh, happy to help," I say. I mean, is there a good way to respond to that?

Qrow nods, then walks down the stairs, out of sight. A door open and closes, and I swear I can hear a faint caw as he transforms into a bird and flies away.

I stand in the hallway for a minute, taking in the surrealness of the past twenty-four hours.

Has it even been twenty four hours? How long was I out?

I look back to the bed, but I'm not tired anymore. My stomach growls again. Maybe I am a little hungry though.

After adjusting the sheets around me, I head down the steps. I wonder what a kitchen in Remnant looks like?


	3. Chapter 3

I'm not sure how a society with a completely different power source somehow managed to end up with basically identical cooking tools, but I'm not complaining. Microwave, stove, refrigerator, oven, and plenty of utensils. There's even a food processor, shiny and unused. It'd be an ideal kitchen.

 _But there's no fucking food!_

I mean, sure, there's a box of dry cereal and some packaged oatmeal in the lower cabinets but there aren't any eggs, vegetables, fruit, bread, flour, sugar, baking powder, seasoning, or meat. At this point I would accept a box of Kraft Mac'n'Cheese and a can of tuna so I could at least _pretend_ like I was eating something of substance, but _nope_ , it's bachelor chow only. I'll have to tell Taiyang he needs to make a grocery run soon.

I make myself a bowl of cereal, plow through it inside of five minutes (healing from being slapped around by fairy-tale monsters works up a _hell_ of an appetite) and sit awkwardly in the kitchen, fiddling with my toga and waiting for the rest of the house to wake up. Or come back? I don't know if any of the Rose/Xiao Long family is actually home. Maybe they went out to get groceries and that's why there's no food?

If that turns out to be the case I'm going to feel like an idiot for ruining my appetite with totally-not-Cheerios.

After a while I get bored and start looking at the books. There aren't a ton, not like home (and _that_ particular thought hurts like a knife to the gut) but it's a sizable collection. Illustrated fairy tales, a few cook books, books about Grimm, and some corner-store mass-market paperbacks. I grab one of each, sit down on the couch, and start reading.

About halfway through one of the paperbacks (which are _way_ raunchier than the ones at home) I hear a door open upstairs. I dogear the page and turn to the stairs, waiting to see who's up.

Red hair, dark enough to look black, and bleary silver eyes, not even changed out of her pyjamas. Ruby gives me a brief glance before heading into the kitchen.

Huh. I'm not sure what I expected, but being ignored wasn't it.

I toss the half-finished novel on top of other unread books and head back into the kitchen. Ruby already has a bowl, a spoon, and the box of cereal on the table but she's struggling a little with the milk.

"Here, let me get that," I offer, grabbing the jug. She backs up and I pour some milk to the bowl. She puts in the cereal and gets to eating, staring at me the entire time. I try to maintain eye contact.

Her silver eyes are... unnerving. Not in a super-scary way like Qrow's bloody circles, but it definitely doesn't seem natural. Like someone cut up some worn quarters and glued them to their eyeballs.

As a quick aside, I think little kids are assholes, spoiled brats who don't yet have enough empathy to count as people. I have literally left rooms because someone brought their toddler into them, and whenever someone announces that they're pregnant I can't help but feel a bolt of virulent disgust shoot through me at the thought of another hairless rat entering the world.

It's a necessary part of the human reproductive cycle but I'll be damned if I have to coo and pretend like I like the little worms.

"Who're you?" Ruby asks, voice filled with innocent curiosity and completely devoid of guile.

I look her up and down, then resolve to give her a shot. Maybe she'll be the cool type of small child that likes asking interesting question until she putters out instead of the endlessly destructive gremlins I tried to teach how to ski in high school.

"I'm Midas Laurel," I respond, the name odd on my tongue. "Uh, Qrow dropped me off last night," I explain, clasping my hands in front of me and fidgeting.

She nods and has another bite of cereal. After swallowing she goes back to talking. "Does that mean Dad's going to come back with another Mom?"

I fall out of the chair.

After assuring Ruby that I'm not hurt, I grab a glass of milk and have a long drink.

"I do not know what's going on with Taiyang," I start slowly, trying to figure out how to phrase this. "Why'd you ask that?" I say, stalling for time.

She shrugs. "Well, Dad had Yang with Raven a little bit after they got married, and after he got married to Mom they had me. Dad gets a new baby whenever he gets married," she finishes, nodding confidently at the chain of logic.

I stare at her, tensing my face. Mustn't laugh. It would destroy her poor little feelings.

"I'm... not Taiyang's son," I say, pointing to my hair. "Uh, wrong hair color."

Ruby's face falls into despair. "But... but..." she grabs two locks of her own hair and looks at them, "Does this mean that Dad's not my Dad?"

"No no no!" I say, lifting my hands and waving them furiously in denial. Fuck fuck fuck backtrack! Where did this go wrong? "I mean like Taiyang has blond hair and blue eyes and I have brown hair and green eyes and if I was Taiyang's kid I'd have some of his genetic material and I'd look like him!"

Ruby's face falls. "I don't-don't," she bursts into tears, "I DON'T LOOK LIKE DAD AT ALL!" she screams and I feel like the worst brother ever.

Wait, brother?

Oh no, the madness is spreading.

"Did you make Ruby cry?" an angry and familiar voice says behind me. I turn around to get a face full of angry eight year old Yang.

"Yes!" I answer reflexively before realizing what I'm saying. "I mean I tried to explain to-" the rest is cut off when she punches me in the stomach. I fall to my knees wheezing as she goes around the table to whisper something to Ruby, who's still crying.

After recovering my breath, I get a hand on the table and pull myself up. "It's not," I heave in another breath, "Like that. I was trying to explain that Taiyang's not my Dad-"

"He's not?" Yang says, tilting her head, a note of genuine surprise leaking into her voice. "I thought that when you got married you got a kid?"

Goddamnit Yang!

"No!" I say, grasping my head. "That's not- It's-" I give up and let my head fall onto the table. It hurts more than I think it should and I wince against the wood. Isn't Aura supposed to be a personal forcefield or something?

"Can we just get Tai to explain this?" I mumble. When there's no response I lift my head. Did I say something wrong?

Ruby's looking into her bowl like it killed her favorite puppy. Yang has a more complicated expression, but it's still south of happy.

A door opens upstairs, and heavy footsteps come down the steps. Slowly, like the person is carrying a heavy load and can't quite handle it. I turn towards the entrance of the kitchen. I don't enough about Tai to separate canon from fanon, so I try to clear my head of any expectations. Fresh starts for everyone.

Then he comes into the room and I start revising my expectations.

His clothes are rumpled and stained with dirt, his beard is uneven and tangled, his hair is matted and filthy, and his eyes are bloodshot enough that I imagine he's either smoked the largest blunt in the history of Remnant or he's missed a solid few _days_ of sleep.

Ruby, Yang and I stay silent as he leans against the door jamb and looks over the three of us with something like relief mixed with shame on his face.

"Hi girls," he says quietly, one hand going across his body to grab his elbow. "I heard from Qrow that you..." he takes a deep breath in, then lets it go. "That you went out last night."

Yang puts an arm around Ruby protectively. "I found something on Mom and I went to go after it. You weren't home, so I took Ruby with me and-"

"And nearly got eaten by Beowolves," Taiyang interrupts, his voice fragile. Yang stops talking and looks away from her father. I scan for an exit. This feels too personal for me to be here. "You risked your life and your sister's so you could try and find Raven." He wipes his face. "And you nearly died," he whispers.

I look between the grown man breaking into tears and his daughter, who's looking less and less confident with every strangled sob. Ruby is still staring at her cereal but I can see she's not looking too hot either.

Fuck. I'm _not good_ with this shit. Like, _really_ not good.

"Um," I start before coughing into my elbow. Fucking dry throat. When I bring my head back up, Tai and Yang are both staring at me. I feel heat flush my face and I need to take a deep breath before speaking.

"Um, are we getting groceries today?" I ask. The stares don't go away. "Because we, uh, only have cereal."

There's a _very_ awkward silence.

"It would be nice to eat something different for breakfast," Ruby says, looking up with a grin on her face. I shoot her a smile. Thank you, you wonderful little girl with a perfect sense of timing.

Things move fast after that. Tai goes to a bathroom to clean himself up, Yang helps Ruby get dressed for the day, I wash the dishes, and we all meet up in the living room, the books I pulled off the shelf still sitting where I left them. Tai eyes the stacks from his arm chair while Ruby and Yang relax on the couch and I sit down on a chair dragged in from the kitchen.

"You actually get through any of that?" he asks, leaning forward and tilting his head to read the titles. He looks a lot younger without the beard.

I shrug. "About half of Everest's Enchanted Cabin." Cheap seven beat romances are fast fun but I don't seem to be getting the same sort of kick out of them as I did back home.

I see Tai freeze at that, and Yang gets a puzzled expression on her face. Fuck, right. Cheap, seven-beat romance. Ruby looks at Tai with a face full of innocent curiosity.

"Dad, what's that one about?" she asks.

"It's about grown-up things," he says quickly, shooting me a furious look. "Our guest didn't quite get it, did he?"

"Nope, not at all," I say, shaking my head. Whatever age Ruby is right now, it's probably too young to hear the adjective "throbbing" in _any_ context.

We lapse into silence. This time, Tai's the one to break it.

"Qrow told me that you baited away the Beowolves. He didn't tell me much else." He's looking at me now and I don't know what to do so I rearrange my makeshift toga and try to meet his gaze.

"Yeah, that was, uh, me," I say. Ruby and Yang are also staring and goddammit _why do I always fold under pressure_? "Just did what anyone should do," I say, tapping an irregular beat on my legs with my fingers, trying to work out some of the nervousness. Come on heart rate, calm down, just do some fractional derivatives and-

"Thank you," he says, voice tender and loving. I flush and scratch at the back of my head (and since when has my hair been down to my shoulders?) to try and buy time to figure out a response. I do _not_ take compliments well. Part of that's too many examples of overconfidence have poisoned me against taking credit and part of that is _I just don't like being put on the spot_.

"I try," I respond. _You're welcome_ , _no problem_ , or _happy to help_ all seem a little inappropriate.

"Where're you from?" Ruby asks, bouncing on her cushion next to Yang.

Oh. Right.

Home.

"I..." I swallow a lump in my throat. Mom and Dad. Right. They're gone. "Can I not answer that question right now?" I don't- I clench my hands into fists. I don't want to forget them. Or Grandpa, or Noni, or my brothers, or my sister, or anyone.

I don't want to lie, but telling the truth is a one-way trip to the loony bin.

"Take your time," Tai says, one hand reaching out to rub my shoulder. I keep myself from flinching away from it. "What can you tell us?"

I think about it for a while. Long enough that Ruby and Yang start getting antsy.

Fuck it.

"I'm from a long ways away," I start. "I'm kinda smart, recently got my Aura unlocked, listen to basically any sort of music, and like baking." It's the worst introduction ever.

"Baking?" Ruby says, eyes wide with possibility. "What do you bake?" Okay, maybe not the worst idea ever.

"Cakes and tarts primarily, but I can do anything that doesn't involve whipping egg whites or caramel," I answer automatically, mentally sorting through my list of recipes. Strawberries and watermelon are things on Remnant, but what about blackberries? Raspberries?

"Dadcanwegetcakestuffandmakecakestoday?" Ruby says, the words running together into one long squeal and I wince at the note she hits. Another thing about little kids that sucks: the _noise_. Yang and Tai smile at it though, a new energy sufusing them.

"Sure," Tai says, standing up and stretching. "Let's head into town." He meets my eyes. We're not done, but he's putting the discussion on hold for now.

"Come on come on, let's get shoes on!" Yang rhymes unintentionally, running to the door with Ruby in tow.

I stand up to follow and promptly trip over my toga.

Fucking...

An arm comes into my field of vision. I grab it with one hand and grab the sheets with my other. Taiyang hauls me up and gives me a once-over with a critical eye.

"We can't have you running around in just a sheet forever," he says, rubbing his freshly-shaven chin thoughtfully. "Since we're going out anyway, you might as well pick up some clothes. On the other hand, we can't exactly take you into the store in just that." He looks towards his daughters and I see inspiration spark in his eyes.

Oh no. I see where this is going. Don't do it Tai.

"Say, you're about Yang's size..." he trails off, his gaze turning back to me.

Goddamnit Tai.


	4. Chapter 4

There are times when it pays to be of a thinner stature. When you're trying to save money by purchasing only the necessary amount of food, for example. Or when some asshole parks too close to your car and you have to shimmy yourself into the three-inch gap between door and vehicle.

Or when you have to squeeze into a skirt and a pink sparkly tee because (and I quote) "If he's going to get cooties all over my clothes I want blackmail material!"

Goddamnit Yang.

"This is stupid," I articulate for what feels like the millionth time. "This is really, really-"

"Man up and rock the shirt," Taiyang says, pulling into a parking space. "Besides, you'll only be in it for a little longer."

"Stupid," I say one last time over Ruby and Yang's giggling before I pop my belt buckle and hop out of the car. The wheels don't look like anything I've seen at home, but other than that it seems similar enough. Roughly the same number of levers, activated by a button instead of a key, but otherwise the same.

Tai leaves me alone in the store to pick out clothes. When I ask what my budget is, he just waves his hand at me.

"I make good money and this place is cheap," he says. "Pick out whatever."

I eye the price tags and start doing some mental calculations. Five lien buys a tee shirt, which costs... I don't know how many dollars at a cheap department store back home. I guess it couldn't be _that_ easy. Figuring out the dollar-to-lien exchange rate and getting an idea of what things should cost is going to be a pain.

Tai leaves to attend to his daughters (Yang's already picking out a shirt to replace the one I "cootie-fied") as I wander among the racks of clothing, pulling out a few items that catch my eye. Some mono-colored shirts in different sizes, jeans that look about right, underwear (why are briefs for children so hard to find?) and a sweatshirt with Vale's coat of arms on the front, comfortable and easy to put on. I don't want to waste Tai's money and get something nice that I'll grow out of. I think about what my future looks like as I head to the changing rooms. Puberty is still probably a few years off-

I slap myself. Of course! _That's_ why I didn't enjoy the romance novel! No hormones or sex drive means no hit of dopamine for imagining sexy scenes! Wow, I'm going to have to _completely_ change my morning routine. I'm pretty sure that little kids aren't supposed to wake up at six, shower twice a day, need deodorant-

Oh shit, I'll have to go through puberty again.

I mouth as many cuss words as I can remember as I close the door to the changing room. I have _no idea_ how Aura is going to interact with things like acne or BO. Is the bacteria close enough to my cells to become super Aura-enhanced bacteria and turn my face into a cratery mess? Does Aura contribute to autoimmune response? I don't remember any of the main cast of RWBY getting a cold but neither did any of the normal people in Teen Wolf, so it could just be an aspect of TV shows.

I push aside the potential nightmare fuel and start trying on shirts. The first one I grab fits well enough, so I check the size. I'll just get six others in different colors and call it good. I move onto the jeans. Much more important, and much harder to get right. These ones are a little loose around the leg (I wonder if the people of Remnant are just more fit?), but they don't fall to the floor after I put them on. I look at myself in the mirror.

My hair's still brown (looks like de-aging didn't re-blond me), but it's a _lot_ longer than I'm used to, nearly shoulder length. I might have to get that cut. My face looks different. Cleaner, with more softness. It's almost like I'm a kid again. Hah.

It's the scars that get me.

I look like I've been beaten with a salted lash never healed quite right. My ribs are covered with red irregular spots, heavy on the sides and lighter towards the center. I poke one. The flesh feels warped. Like there's a divot. Like I'm missing something. The compound fractures probably. Four parallel lines run under my right arm. I twist and take a closer look. Claw marks curl around, reaching maybe three inches into my chest.

Oh.

I've spent maybe one day in Remnant and I've already been hurt worse than everyone I've ever known combined.

I cry for a bit. Not more than a minute. I don't feel better afterwards, but I do feel cleaner. Like I just vomited up something toxic and my stomach's finally settled.

After dressing in a shirt and the good-enough jeans I pick up a few more articles of clothing, track down Tai, wait for a bit while Yang picks out some clothes for Ruby, and eventually the four of us walk out of the store with new wardrobes.

"What do you need for the cake?" Tai asks once we're back in the car. Right, baking. Ruby is practically phasing through her car seat with excitement.

"Flour, sugar, baking soda and baking powder, vegetable oil, eggs, baker's chocolate, cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and butter," I rattle off. "Oh, and cocoa powder," I add. "That one's important. Also, fruit."

"What kind?" Yang asks, turning to look at me with lilac eyes. "That's not _berry_ specific of you."

"Strawberries!" Ruby says while I drop my head into my hands, the innocent little girl blissfully ignorant of the abuse of the English language that just occurred. Yang was punning even when she was eight. I can only try to engage on her level or simply ignore it.

"Listen Yang, take it easy with the puns," Taiyang says, easing into a turn. I feel a spark of hope within me. RWBY Chibi isn't canon, so maybe...

"After all, not everyone is pre- _pear_ -ed for such comedy."

Tai, why do you do this? Raise my hopes, just to drag them back into the pit.

Oh no. Pit. Fruit pit. I've already been infected.

"But Dad, you're being un- _raisin_ -able!" Yang says, smiling widely as Ruby stares at me.

"Can we please have strawberry cake?" she asks, hands tapping against her car seat. "Please please please!"

"Yes, the cake can work with strawberries," I say quickly. "Now can we please stop the puns?" I'm not sure how many more I can take before I snap.

"We don't need your _persimmon_ ," Yang says in a sing-song voice. "Besides, puns are the Xiao Long _jam_!

I'm in hell.

* * *

After what feels like an eternity of increasingly shitty fruit puns later (tomatoes are fruits in name only, you sick bastards!), we arrive at the grocery store. Tai grabs a cart and puts Ruby in the kiddie seat. Yang walks next to Tai, never more than an arm's length or two away. It looks idyllic, and if it wasn't for the knife to the feels when I see Tai unconsciously reach out his hand into the empty air next to him I'd almost think it was perfect.

As is, it's as intimidating as a mosh pit. Where do I fit in here?

Ruby notices me lingering behind them and motions me over towards her. I move a little closer. "Do you know any stories?" she asks.

I think back to endless hours in high school and college, cooped up in a dark corner with a book and some earbuds when the world just got too damn _loud_ to listen to.

"A few," I answer. "What kind do you want?" I think Tai would be mad if I told a proper horror story, but maybe something with-

"Heroes!" she says, and I can practically feel Yang rolling her eyes behind me. Of course. Welp, might as well start with a classic.

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there was a princess with information critical to the survival of a rebellion," I start, casting my memory back to movie nights with stale popcorn, blankets galore, and absolute silence as yellow text crawled against the speckled starfield of space.

* * *

We've gathered enough groceries to feed a small army and I've almost gotten to the introduction of Han Solo when something catches my eye.

Composition books. Pens. Pencils. An idea comes to mind.

"Hey, Tai," I say, stopping my story. Ruby whines, but Tai ignores her and looks at me.

"Hmm?" he inquires before following my gaze. "You want something to write in?" he deduces.

"If it's not too much trouble," I clarify. "Like, I'm pretty sure I can't really pay you back for anything and-"

"Don't worry about it," he says, shrugging. "What're you planning to do with them?"

"I figure I'd write down what I know," I reply. "Stories, some personal thoughts. Stuff," I shrug. I'm not a diary guy, really, but I know I could easily forget most of my Earth Prime knowledge in less than a week if I'm not careful. Best to get it all down before the sands of time wear the memories away.

"Go ahead," he says, waving me off. I head over to the aisle of school supplies and grab a few regular comp books, some pens (damn, they don't have Pilot G2's) and a packet of mechanical pencils.

"Thanks."

I definitely _don't_ jump at the sudden voice behind me. Not even a little bit. After I finish scrabbling for the dropped stationary I turn around. Yang's there, staring me resolutely in the eye. "Thanks for helping me and Ruby in the forest."

"Tai already thanked me," I say, clutching the writing tools to my chest. Why why why do people think they need to thank people multiple times? "You really don't-"

"Yeah, I kinda do," she says. "If I hadn't gone out, then you wouldn't have had to draw the Beowolves away-"

"-and I might have frozen to death instead of getting my Aura unlocked," I counter. "I appreciate your thanks, now can we go back to the puns?" I ask. Anything but this.

She doesn't seem to think it's settled, but she does seem to be willing to let it go for now. She starts walking back towards Tai before stopping and turning back to face me. "That's quite an _apple_ -ing suggestion you're making..."

Kill me.

* * *

Back at the Xiao Long residence, the journal supplies rest on the couch while I start making the cake. After a disastrous incident involving eggs and butter that ends in a new change of clothes for everyone involved, Ruby is relegated to an observing role with Tai (there to make sure the house doesn't accidentally burn down) while Yang and I do the actual cooking. She's actually super helpful (unlike my sister _shutting that train of thought down right now_ ) and we wrap up the batter inside of twenty minutes. After the two pans go in and the oven door closes, there's a little sigh. We both turn to look at Ruby.

"That's it?" Ruby says, glancing between Yang and I. Yang looks at me.

"Is it?" she asks, turning to the four dirty utensils currently soaking in the sink. "I mean, the kitchen is pretty clean..."

"Do you guys measure the success of a session in the kitchen by the mess that's left afterwards?" I ask incredulously. When the _entire_ Xiao Long family refuses to meet my gaze, I have a sudden moment of sympathy for Summer. That poor woman. "The cake itself is done," I clarify. "Now we wait for it to come out, and while it's cooling we can make the frosting. Were you expecting cooking to be hard?" I ask.

"Yeah," Ruby says with the honesty that only the very young can pull off. Tai nods along with her, and Yang rubs the back of her head sheepishly.

"Mom always made it look easy," she mutters.

And just like that the mood is murdered. Ruby's smile turns fragile, Tai gets a look in his eyes that tells me he's wandered off into bittersweet memories, and Yang starts biting her lower lip when she realizes that she fucked up.

I need to run interference and get these people to think about anything other than Summer right now because I sure as hell don't know how to help a grieving family.

"So, we need to kill thirty three minutes while this cake bakes," I blurt out, walking towards the door. "Do you wanna know what happens after our heroes enter the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in the galaxy?" I ask, hanging by the door. "I figure I should probably write this stuff down while I'm telling the story, make sure I don't forget it." Actually, if there's no Star Wars parallel in this universe, I'm totally going to plagiarize the _hell_ out of George Lucas. The people here deserve to be introduced to the greatest sci-fi trilogy of all time.

"Yeah!" Ruby says, pushing past me and making a beeline for the unopened composition books and pencils on the couch. "Lemme help you open them!" Tai smiles and goes after his daughter. Yang nudges me in the side as she passes me.

"Thanks," she whispers, before going to fuss over Ruby, who's trying to open up a packet of pencils with her teeth. I join them.

For the next thirty minutes I play the storyteller. I handwave away questions about names, use silly voices for the aliens, do my best Wookie impression (which is bad, but it gets Yang and Ruby to try and I think Tai nearly catches diabetes from the concentrated adorableness), answer various questions about the logistics of a space station the size of a moon, and cut myself off about halfway through the escape from the Death Star when the timer on the oven goes off.

"Right, food!" I say, getting up from my rather comfortable chair and walking into the kitchen. "Where are the mittens?" I ask.

"Right here!" Ruby says, running in behind me and pulling open a drawer to reveal several mismatched oven mitts. Perfect.

"Thanks," I say, remembering to smile. I pull a pair on before turning to the oven and opening it-

"Rubes!" Tai shouts and the two of us freeze.

"Yeah?" Ruby says, turning. Tai's at the door, hands clinging to the frame like he's bracing himself against a current, a pained expression on his face.

"Could you-" he swallows, visibly forcing down stronger words, "-please step away from the oven? Don't want to you to get burned," he finishes, trying to explain something that he knows intellectually is too much but he can't help but do because what if this is the one time doing way too much keeps his family safe? Yang is peeking out from behind his legs, a similar worry in her eyes.

"Uh, sure," Ruby says meekly, stepping back. I remove the cake tins without comment, turn off the oven, and set a timer for ten minutes. The kitchen is silent after that, one part confused, to two parts embarrassed and worried, to one part desperately trying to understand.

Overprotective, huh?

"Welp, we still need to make the frosting," I say, trying to break the awkward silence. "Yang, you want to help Ruby with this?" The easiest part of the whole thing, it's literally just mixing powdered sugar into cream cheese slowly.

"Yup," Yang says, walking over to the sink and pulling out the tines for the egg beater.

"Yay, frosting!" Ruby says, running to the dining room. "I'll get a chair!"

I'm still the one to melt the chocolate but Ruby and Yang take care of the base frosting easily enough while Tai chops up the strawberries into wafers. Once everything is mixed together, I get to frosting while Ruby and Yang arrange the fruit on top of the now-flipped cakes. Ten more minutes ( _God_ , I love easy recipes) and there's a chocolate/strawberry cake wrapped in totally-not-Saran-wrap sitting in the refrigerator. I start washing dishes while Ruby and Yang head into the living room to play a board game.

"Is now a good time to talk about where you came from?" Tai asks, sidling up beside me and picking up a pan to scrub at. I totally _don't_ jump and nearly send the measuring cup flying before taking a deep breath and letting it out.

"What do you want to know?" I ask, giving the cup one last rinse before placing it on the drying rack.

"Anything you can tell me," he answers, grinding his sponge into a particularly stubborn bit of debris on the pan.

I rinse a spoon off and try to think of something satisfying yet far enough from the truth to be believable.

"I'm _really_ far from home," I start, even though it's not new information. "I feel older than I am," Tai snorts at that, "and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life now that I'm a stranger in a strange land." Minus all the weird sexual/economic stuff that the actual Stranger in a Strange Land had running through it. Thank God.

"That really doesn't tell me anything," he says, tossing the pan onto the drying rack and getting to work on the bowl.

"My parents were-are-," I correct myself, they're almost certainly not dead yet, "Doctors, and I wanted to be a writer. Does that satisfy you?" I ask bitterly.

"Not really," he says, tossing the bowl onto the rack. That's the last dish. He looks down at me and starts drying his hands off. "On the other hand, you don't sound like a serial killer and you saved my girls. That'll do for now." He passes me the towel. "C'mon, Remnant needs four players."

I dry my hands while looking at the father leaving the kitchen. Then I toss the towel onto the counter and walk after him.

I'm always down to learn a new game.


	5. Chapter 5

The Xiao Long household has a pretty consistent daily routine. First, Tai wakes up at the crack of dawn, sometimes earlier, and does his Huntsman conditioning. Then he wakes us up and cooks breakfast, which Yang or I help with by making a side dish. After that, Tai breaks out the school books and gets to homeschooling Yang and Ruby while I sit off in a corner and read my own copies of the textbooks.

I had tried to join in on the lessons the first day, "tried" being the operative word. I was hopelessly ignorant about History, Weapon Crafting, Grimm Anatomy, Hunter Law, basically anything that wasn't Math or Literature, and I was only able to work through the second one because good storytelling doesn't change across dimensions, not because I knew shit on a stick about Remnant's literary canon. After a humiliating loss to six-year-old Ruby in the Remnant equivalent of Jeopardy (both Yang and Tai were laughing by the end of it, the bastards), Tai just handed me a few textbooks and told me to get cracking.

After morning lessons we break for lunch. Yang and I cook this one so it's always simpler fare than breakfast. Sandwiches, soups, stir fry, stuff that doesn't require too much skill or effort. There are mishaps from time to time (pickles in quesadillas are _not_ as good as they sound) but it's usually mostly edible.

The afternoons are the fun parts of the day. And by "fun" I mean fun intellectually, the fun of learning skills that you know will eventually be useful, because it takes a special kind of idiot to find being beaten into the ground by a large man with a stick genuinely fun.

* * *

"Son of a BITCH!" I shout for what feels like the fiftieth time as the length of hardwood smacks into my shoulder and drives me into the dirt. Admittedly, it hurts less than it did on the first day I started training with the Xiao Longs, but _goddamnit it still hurts!_

"You said a swear!" Ruby calls from the porch, a book of weapon schematics lying forgotten on the table next to her. "You shouldn't do that!" Brat.

"Language," Tai reprimands, extending his free hand to me. I take it and he hauls me up to standing. "You sure you're not Qrow's? I've never met a kid with a mouth like yours," he says, taking a lazy swing at my face which I lean back to avoid.

"Nope," I answer, trying to force my Aura out of my skin and form a sort of forcefield around myself. Apparently Aura armor takes time and effort to learn as opposed to being a flat buff. But if that's the case, what's up with Jaune? Maybe there _is_ a passive buff that you can enhance with training, and Jaune just has so much Aura that it's basically a regular Hunter's shield?

Tai belts me a good one across the ribs. I stop speculating and go back to thinking defensive thoughts.

Halfway between too-damn-long and oh-God-kill-me later, a timer goes off on the porch and Tai stops swinging.

"Times up," he says, not even sweating as I stagger towards the shady deck. Ruby's already there with a water bottle and a towel, both of which I accept gratefully as I collapse into a chair. Jesus, I knew that Hunter training couldn't be a cake walk, but this? I remember running through ROTC drills with my brother on a lark, vomiting after the pull up section, and _still_ feeling less exhausted than I do right now.

Yang comes out of the house clad in shorts and a tank top, her mane of blond hair bound by a scrunchie. I salute her with the water bottle.

" _Water_ you feeling like?" she asks, crossing one arm over her chest as she goes through some stretches. I'm too tired to groan, so I settle for giving her a black look.

"Like shi- _uffleboard_ ," I say, catching sight of Ruby at the last moment. There are already too many IOUs in the swear jar with my name on them.

"Swearing's bad, okay?" Yang says cheekily, dropping down on the deck and stretching out her legs. "How're you coming along?"

"I think I only have a little internal bleeding," I respond sarcastically, chugging some more water. "Other than that, things are going great."

Yang nods, finishing up her stretches. "Wish me luck," she says, walking towards her father, who's tossed the stick to the side.

"Guard!" he shouts, kicking forward. Yang gets her arms up in time and they start training. I look closely, trying to imprint as much of it as possible into my memory.

I had this idea when I asked Tai for training that being a twenty-year-old mentally would give me some sort of advantage. That delusion got kicked out of me after about five seconds. Then it got punched out of me. Then it got thrown out of me. After Tai finally realized that I was literally working from nothing he acquired a few sticks and started teaching me the basics of how to use Aura for more than just a healing factor.

I ate a _lot_ of crow those first few weeks. Some of it was when Tai gave me the lowdown on using Aura as a shield, then as a physical enhancement. Some of it was when he had Yang teach me how to throw a punch. I didn't fuck up the fist itself but apparently my form for actually throwing it was terrible and I had a lot of bad habits to get rid of.

I still suck now, but I feel a little less sucky than I did before. Probably just the placebo effect though.

Yang's learning her Dad's fighting style (and I'll be damned if he isn't more careful with her than he is with me), and when she runs out of steam I step back in, leaving the water bottle for Ruby to refill.

Now, from what I remember about working out from Earth Prime, you're not supposed to exercise constantly. That leads to muscle degradation, and you need to rest and let your body repair itself. Since Aura's healing factor works better on small problems than large ones, recovery time on Remnant can be measured in _hours_ , maybe minutes if you've been training for years and know how to target your passive healing. So instead of making a carefully balanced lifting schedule and waiting _months_ to notice any sort of gains, you can just go until it hurts, switch up the muscle group you're working on, and then switch back, ad nauseum. Kids still aren't supposed to try to put on too much weight but there's no sense in waiting to work on cardio and reflexes.

Hence the four hours of what would be considered criminal levels of physical exercise back on Earth Prime mixed in with a run-until-you-collapse circuit around the house at the end of the day.

Tai smacks the bony part of my knee and I yelp, leaping back. Huntsmen. They're crazy. All of them.

The sun has nearly set by the time we collapse, sweaty and exhausted, into our chairs at the dinner table. Tai's fixed up tacos, and we don't even try to pretend to have decent table manners as we tear into the food. I have no idea how Mexican food developed here. Maybe it came from Vacuo or something? More stuff to learn about.

There's a knock at the door, and Ruby excitedly pushes away from the table.

"I'll get it!" she says, running for the door with all the speed her six-year-old legs can muster. Tai goes after her while Yang and I continue to eat. After polishing off a fourth taco, I lean back in my chair, full and content.

"You okay?" Yang asks, nibbling at another taco. I nod.

"Doing pretty alright," I answer. I mean, I still miss my music, my family, my media, the fanfics I'll never finish reading, coffee...

A lot. I still miss them a lot, and I tend to wake up in the middle of the night and sit down with a glass of water I wish was limoncello in the living room and write down as much as I can possibly remember about home.

But I'm here now. I'm even getting some full nights of sleep, so apparently my subconscious believes that as well.

"Hey, Midas!" Ruby shouts from the door. "It's for you!"

What?

"Who is it?" I ask, getting up and walking out of the kitchen.

"Some old guy," Ruby says, standing by the open door in front of Professor Ozpin.

"Hello Mr. Laurel," the immortal time wizard says.

* * *

"So..." I start, staring at Ozpin across the table.

He sips calmly from his mug. Actually, it's not his mug. It's Taiyang's, and has "Include this in my Mug Shot" printed on the side of it.

I'm seizing on details. I recognize I'm doing that. It's what I do when I have no idea what I should do. It's an attempt to gather more information so I can make an informed decision.

Now I'm doing it on a meta level.

"I am not here to harm you," Ozpin replies, leaning back against the couch and taking a sip from his mug. Cocoa. I don't remember that from canon but apparently it's his thing.

"Yeah, I picked up on that," I say absentmindedly. "If you were, Qrow or somebody with looser morals would come by, pick me up under the guise of adoption, and chop my head off once you were out of sight."

Ozpin sips again and doesn't deny it.

"Your information is intriguing," he says. "You'll understand if I'm curious as to the source of it?" He phrases it like a question. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not and he'll cut me up if I don't answer truthfully.

I take a deep breath. Then let it out.

Trust. Trust is the crux of the matter. On the one hand, Ozpin is a free agent with his own agenda. On the other hand, if I don't trust Ozpin, who _do_ I trust? I don't think I'll be able to keep my origins a secret for my entire life on Remnant, and he's more likely than anyone else on Remnant to believe the truth, what with the whole time-wizard thing and all.

"You know how hard it is to get people to believe the unbelievable," I start slowly, trying to figure out a way to phrase things in a way that we'll both understand and no one else will. "The gap between you and I is of the same magnitude as the gap between a regular person and you. Does that make sense?" I ask. I'm really bad at explaining things at the best of times, and there's really not a good way to explain that someone's entire world is actually a TV show.

Fortunately, Ozpin seems to get it. "Your source of information would be as unbelievable to me as the fact that magic exists would be to a lay person." I nod.

"So, if you want to know, I can tell you. On the other hand, I'm not sure how much it will help. That, and I'm pretty sure it'd-"

"You come from another world that has observed some of this one. Specifically, you saw the future, but not all of it."

I blink. Twice. Ozpin takes another sip of cocoa.

What.

"Hazel disappeared not long after his sister died, but Watts has had additional observers placed around him. Additionally, the Fall and Spring Maidens have received escorts and warnings, and I have already located the father of Mercury Black and dispatched Huntsmen to relieve him of his offspring." Ozpin places the mug on the coffee table and leans forward, lacing his hands under his chin.

"Your intel speaks of a limited view, with seemingly arbitrary flaws. It is those flaws that informed my deductions. The information you provide on metallurgy and sociology refers to concepts that have already been discovered and applied, though under different names. So, after eliminating many options, I believe there are three possibilities. First," he lifts one hand and raises his index finger, "that you can see the future. This is theoretically possible, perhaps through a particularly esoteric Semblance, but Qrow informed me that you did not have your Aura unlocked prior to your intervention between the Grimm and his nieces. While you could've unlocked your Semblance while you were recuperating and dreamed up the information, that does not explain the other data you sought to include."

Right, a brief history of Earth's industry, as told by a person who knows the broad strokes and none of the details.

"Alternatively," he raises a second finger, "you could have come from a hitherto-unknown society somewhere on Remnant that mimics ours quite closely. There, you had access to a network of spies in innumerable places while also not knowing the state of the sciences or the precise chronology of the events you were informed of. This could explain most things, but you mentioned that the gap in imaginability is unusually large."

He raises a third finger, "As a result, I cast my net wider. Instead of another society, another planet, whose distance from ours ensured that you missed a large amount of context when observing us. This would explain the similarities in scientific phenomenon, the lack of fine details in your information, and your statement about believability. "

I sit there for I don't know how long, just gaping like an idiot. He got _damn_ close. All with just context clues.

I suddenly feel very, very stupid.

"I have had some experience with the impossible," Ozpin says, leaning back in his seat. He has enough grace not to smirk at least. "Now could you please, in your own words, relay what you know, both about the future of this planet and what you know about your own? I understand that you were rushed when you gave information to Qrow, and I suspect there is more to learn."

I shake my head and let it fall into my hands. "Why is everyone I meet smarter than I am?" I ask. _Of course_ they'd develop the scientific method on Remnant. _Of course_ they'd develop sociology as field of research. Hell, they're probably _decades_ ahead of Earth, what with the imminent threat of death by Grimm if people ever get below a certain threshold of happiness.

"You have not met very many people," Ozpin says, a note of amusement in his voice. "That, and I suspect those you have met are a mark above the rest."

I sigh. Then I start talking.

I start with what I know. Books. Books and media and the current state of technology. Ozpin doesn't interrupt except to ask for the clarification of a term here and there. Then I move onto history, or what I know of it. Ozpin doesn't blink as I describe the Holocaust, or race relations, or the other genocides that I don't know the exact details of. After a while I run out of big things to say and trail off.

"Does that help?" I ask.

Ozpin strokes his chin, eyes unfocused in a way that tells me his thoughts are elsewhere. "The moon, you say?"

I nod. "Yeah. All it took was was convincing the most powerful nation on the planet that someone else would get there first." And we could've had a moon base too, if anyone had actually wanted to front the cash for it.

"It's been a while since anyone made a concentrated effort to travel beyond Remnant," Ozpin says before shaking his head and looking at me. "Wonders aside, I believe I have heard enough. I would ask one more question, though."

"Shoot," I say, waving my hand at him. Tai probably wants his house back, so we should wrap this up soon.

"What do you intend to do?" I raise an eyebrow.

"About what?" I mean, I've dropped all the info I have. I'm pretty decent at lateral thinking, but not good enough to justify having an eight-year-old mucking about with his super-secret plans.

"With your life," he clarifies, folding his hands. I snort and open my mouth to answer before pausing.

I don't actually have a plan anymore. The old plan was to graduate college, write something worth reading, do that a few more times, and try to find an effective route to immortality. Maybe a family.

That doesn't really apply anymore. Not in a world of monsters and heroes.

Or does it?

I _could_ just live a normal life. Go to the city, get an education, work some fairly mundane job while I try to write something good enough to sell. The fiction here must be all _sorts_ of interesting, what with the Grimm and Huntsmen. Hell, I've been here for maybe a week and I've already got an idea. A pair of lovers, finding solace in one another initially because they need to keep the Grimm at bay, then the feelings develop into something real. A secret is revealed, negativity spikes, and there's a happy resolution as one of them saves the other from the Grimm. The book practically writes itself, even if it's almost certainly been done before.

So, I have an idea for a story. Ozpin would probably cover my living expenses and schooling, and I have a good decade until my majority to learn and write. Hell, my chances of getting published are probably even better than back home, what with the presumably lower population and all.

But that particular dream doesn't seem as appealing to me anymore.

Maybe it's my eight-year-old brain chemistry that doesn't find the intellectual pursuits as cool anymore. Maybe it's the near-death experience I had making me re-evaluate everything. Maybe I'm still in denial about being very far from Kansas and therefore not thinking straight.

None of these explanations change the fact that I can't imagine sitting in one place, alone and semi-motionless, for hours on end writing. The thought of all that stillness makes me shudder. Yeah, no. I need to do something with people. Something that helps folks. I've tried and failed chem classes, so being a doctor is out, along with most of the sciences. I love the hell out of those crazy bastards, but there isn't a reasonable amount you could pay me to work in a lab. Maybe something in government? Nah. While I appreciate the necessity of paperwork, I have no interest in filling it out, so politician is probably a no-go. That, and I'm not sure I'd be the same person in office as out of it.

What profession is unambiguously good?

"A Huntsman." The words slip out before I can think too hard about them, but they feel _right_. Like the world was always out of focus and I finally put on a pair of glasses. I look up at Ozpin. "I'm going to see if I can be a Huntsman."

His expression is the same as it always is, but I swear I can see something warm in his eyes now. "Well, I'm sure that Taiyang would be willing to help you with that."

"Say what now?" I ask, surprise creeping into my voice. Ozpin continues before I can get another word in.

"You seem to get along with him and his daughters, they appear to enjoy your company, and Tai is quite capable of raising a child with an unlocked Aura. I suspect he will be more than willing to take you in as well. Do you have a problem with this turn of events?" He arches an eyebrow.

"No," I say slowly. "I just didn't think about it." Between the training, the crash-course in Remnant's history and literature, and trying to record and save what I remember about home, I never really thought about foster families. As far as potential results go, this is probably not the _worst_ thing that could've happened. A thought occurs. "What about Tai? Did he agree to this?" He should _probably_ be involved in the decision-making process.

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Ozpin says, standing up and retrieving his cane. He motions towards the back door.

I get to my feet and take a moment to stretch. We were talking for a looong time. Then I steel myself and head outside.


	6. Chapter 6

Stupid men think in terms of days. Smart men in months. Rulers can learn to plot on a yearly basis, and exceptional ones decades. One woman who opposed me thought in generational scales, and she alone put fear into my heart.

I have only met one other who considers the ensuing centuries when they make decisions. The aberration troubles me to this day, though they are not the same being they were at the beginning of our war. More thoughtful and more considerate, though no less of a bleeding heart.

This lack of foresight is not a fault of man. They live with dying. The fear of loss, of oblivion, of simply not having enough _time_ , causes them to act rashly.

But us? Those like the aberration and I, those who have no fear of the reaper? The ones who have seen it all before and will see it all again?

Time moves differently for us. We can take a moment to think.

* * *

I keep my eyes open when I have aught else to do. A Seer here, a Nevermore there, and secrets fall into my lap with little effort. Most are chaff, squabbles between minor players and whispers about ultimately inconsequential matters. Some are situationally useful, capable of shifting a percentage point here, changing a path there.

And a few have the power to alter plans not yet begun.

"Arthur Watts," I say to the Seer, caressing the ruby-tinted image. "What does Ozpin find so terribly interesting about you?" I have the Nevermore on site drop a Latrelli pupa near the man. It will die in time, and when it does I will have gained understanding about him.

I continue to nudge and nibble at the edges of the human lands. An extra pack of Beowolves here, a slight shift in trajectory there, a little more pressure overall. A little more sorrow, a splash of despair when the Huntsmen don't arrive quite fast enough, and a little nervousness when a Nevermore flies overhead and doesn't descend.

It is always a risk, leaving a human alive. They can get married, tell stories, sing, or any number of other things that can bolster their spirits. They have the habit of holding fast when they should fold, pushing through when they should give up, and going out quietly when they should be screaming.

That is only in extreme circumstances, though. On average, they fall. They are mean, petty creatures that try and fail, over and over again.

All I need is a string of singular victories to end them completely. And I can wait for a very long time for the odds to come up in my favor.

* * *

"What have you brought me, Hazel?" I ask, resting my head on my fist as I recline on my throne. He grunts once and pushes the girl forwards. She falls to her knees, raven hair cascading forward to conceal her face. I raise an eyebrow. While first impressions do not a minion make, they are typically tone-setting when talking to humans.

This... is not a good one.

"Said she wanted to talk to you," he says, meeting my gaze. I allow the slight, as he's one of the few that can stare without quailing. I give him a nod and turn to the child. She, conversely, looks away from me as soon as my gaze falls upon her. I sigh. Another weakling.

"Is this not what you wanted, child?" I ask, the near-whisper deafening in the otherwise silent room. "You come to the Grimmlands, invoke my name, and now that your prize is before you, you falter?"

I wait for her to speak. Hazel stands next to the girl, a monolith of power. She stays on her knees.

Finally, she speaks.

"Lady Salem," she starts. No stuttering. Already an improvement over many. "I wish to enter your service."

I wait longer. Any capacity for patience sets most humans on-edge. It takes time to train them to grow accustomed to silence. Eventually, the girl looks up, her amber eyes shining with a mixture of fear and hope. Fear of me, and hope for the future.

Only a partially correct response to her current situation.

"Why should I take you?"

The hope quails.

"I will serve you faithfully," she begins. I hold up my hand and she falls silent.

"Many come to me, hoping to curry favor. The ambitious. The confident. The clever." Her expression rises. "The poor, the broken, the desperate." Her expression falls. I look her in the eye.

She blinks first. I don't turn away.

"All of them are equally dead."

She doesn't rise. I motion towards Hazel with one hand and he leaves us.

I let the silence drag on, tasting her fear.

"Why?" I ask.

"I will devote myself to you fully."

"So would many."

"I have skills, knowledge."

"Everyone knows something. Everyone has skill."

"I-"

"You bore me." The dismissal hushes her more effectively than any castigation could.

I wait for her to try something new. Something that could persuade me.

She fails.

"What do you have?" I eventually ask.

"Nothing." It's a whisper. Inside it, I hear the beginning of something promising.

"Who do you know?"

"No one." The fear is nearly gone. What's left is emptiness.

Yes. She should work nicely.

"Look at me." Her face comes up, hope in it again. Hope that I might reconsider.

Good. The subject is correct this time.

"You are emptiness. No one. A blank slate." While the rare individual will come into my service whose original self is serviceable, it is best to start from scratch with most. "Your name is gone. Your past is ash. You. Are. _Nothing_." She pays rapt attention, focused on my words. I wait for them to sink into her, percolating in her consciousness, dissolving what remains of herself.

Humans. They can surprise, even after millennia of experience with them. But there are some things that don't change.

"I have use for nothing."

* * *

Servants comes in two varieties. First, there are those that provide unique services. Whether that is through a coincidence of their Semblance, their birth, or simply a quirk of their nature, there are exceptional individuals in any era who are simply of a different sort than the rest. Arthur Watts is such a figure, and while bringing him around to the right way of thinking took effort, it does not appear to be wasted as of yet.

The second type of servant is more expendable. They are the hatchet men, clerks, spies, or have similarly common skills. Useful, but never particularly interesting.

That is, unless they are _exceptionally_ good at their jobs.

"My Queen!" Tyrian howls, falling to the floor with his arms splayed in supplication. "I have failed you!"

I sigh internally. While the Faunus has proven his worth time and time again, his reverence sometimes interferes with practicality. Not to the degree that it must be purged, but enough to irritate.

"Report." The headmistress of Shade Academy is still alive, but what more? There are degrees of failure. Some are little more than delays. Some are catastrophic. Each requires a different response. For better or for worse, my only source of information right now is a half-mad assassin who is rendered a blubbering mess when he believes he has displeased me.

Sometimes I do wonder why I haven't placed parasites inside of him yet.

After coming up to his knees, he relates the encounter. In his briefing, he was informed the headmistress would hunting alone in the woods. Instead, the target had taken a group of students along with her, a training exercise of sorts. Tyrian attempted to engage anyway, began to lose, and fled when another full Huntsman joined the fray.

"Take mercy on your inadequate servant, I beg you!" Tyrian pleads, once more pressing his brow to the floor. "Level what punishment you will, but leave this wretched one with a chance to prove its worth to you!"

"I am not angry Tyrian." The Faunus freezes at that. I sigh, this time audibly. "Raise your head." He does, meeting my eyes, his own uncertain. They do not turn away, though.

"The information was faulty. You were told to eliminate a lonely old woman. Instead, you engaged four nearly-grown Hunters and their teacher in a pitched battle for as long as you could. You only left the field when it became clear that success was impossible rather than improbable." Honestly, he should have left earlier rather than risk his life in pursuit of an unlikely goal. "You failed, Tyrian"— he shudders at the statement —"but you failed due to circumstances outside your control. Rest. Recover. Think about the battle and consider ways to improve. You will receive no reprimand."

"... your mercy knows no bounds, my Queen," he whispers, averting his gaze. I see a tear run down his cheek and resist the urge to roll my eyes. "I will attempt to be worthy of it." He prostrates himself one last time before standing back up and leaving the room. Once he is gone I lean back into my throne and look to the ceiling.

"A craftswoman does not choose her tools," I mutter, closing my eyes and rubbing my temples before summoning a Seer. As puissant as he is, perhaps it would be best to find an assistant for Tyrian. Hazel will not work with the man, nor do I suspect Watts to be an effective combatant. At least, not in the same way that Tyrian is.

I need another attack dog. Ideally, one that could match Tyrian's ferocity while also having some aptitude for subtly. They'd need to be loyal, capable of fighting as part of a group, and individually dangerous.

I scan through some persons of interest before finding a suitable one. Marcus Black, a murderer of not insignificant skill, recently relieved of his son by Vale authorities and on his way to prison. When I last considered him, he was too level-headed to safely approach. Perhaps the loss of his child has changed that.

I have a Beowolf approach Hazel and grunt twice. It's not long before the man himself walks into the throne room, face unreadable.

"I have a task for you."

* * *

I look back at the Seer and through it the eyes of some dying Ursa. A red blade, striking hard, fast and cruel. White masks, the same color as bared teeth. Black clothes, barely showing the tar-like blood spilled upon them.

Faunus. Some of them mimic Grimm, borrowing the terror that comes with the colors, fighting for hate and revenge and spite. I've left them alone for the most part, content to observe how they work against their own interests.

On the other hand, Ozpin has been pulling ahead of late. Not enough to provoke a serious response, but still more than can be explained by chance. While we've both found that overt moves tend to lead to less than satisfying results, escalation can only be met with escalation.

I begin to compose a letter and summon a juvenile Nevermore. Formalities, sympathetic affirmations, an offer of cooperation. Manipulation disguised as agreement. After the ink dries I tie the letter to the leg of the avian Grimm and send it off to meet with the leader of the terrorists.

Historically speaking, working with mad men has given me mixed results. Sometimes they pull of acts stunning enough to be talked about for literally centuries after the fact. Sometimes the burn out inside of a year. No matter the circumstance though, none of them die of old age.

Fortunately, I only need them to be successful once.

* * *

Humans use colors to describe emotions. One can be "red with rage," "green with envy," or a "yellow-bellied coward." It took me time to understand why each color drew out its respective feelings in humans, and longer to understand the nuance that context plays. One day blue may be a sign of joy and purity. The next, an indication of suicide.

There is one expression that I have found to be amusingly accurate. What was it again?

Ah, yes.

A "black" mood.

"You have failed me." The girl flinches at the statement even as Watts smirks. I give him a look and he schools himself into something more contrite. At some point his attitude is going to earn him something more than a slap on the wrist. Fortunately for him, that day is not today.

I wait for the girl to speak up. To try and defend herself.

She doesn't. Good. She's learning.

"You had ample opportunity to gather allies. You recruited a thief and chaff." Said thief's Semblance is rare enough that I may recruit her, but she was the wrong tool for the task I had assigned. That, and the foot-soldiers she found were hardly adequate. "You had the element of surprise. You attempted to fight the Maiden." Dust explosives, poisoned food, or toxic gas all could have disabled the woman without killing her. "You wanted power. You came back with nothing."

"Please my Queen, let me redeem myself." She's whispering, barely audible, shameless. None of Tyrian's zealotry, nor Hazel's quiet competence, nor Arthur's cunning. All this girl had was ambition and desperation. She was clay, waiting to be molded.

A pity she cracked when placed into the furnace.

A tentacle lashes out, twisting around her neck. The girl raises her hands, but those too are caught. Light breaths rasp from her throat, becoming weaker and weaker as what little air is left in her lungs departs and her face goes from white to red to purple to black. Her amber eyes close, one last time, and her breathing ends.

The body hangs in the air for a moment, suspended by the Seer. Hazel is as impassive as ever, but Arthur seems unnerved. Good. A practical example of failure due to negligence will motivate him more than a simple threat ever could.

"Dispose of the body," I command, letting said corpse fall to floor as I wave at Hazel. "Then deal with what remains of her minions." The chaff will be so many worthless mouths to feed, and the thief is unlikely to be worth the effort of recruitment. That, and the idea of having a servant recruited by a servant is distasteful to me.

Once the room is empty save for myself and the Seer, I take a moment to look out over the Grimmlands and consider.

Ozpin has pulled ahead, if only momentarily. No matter, there are other ways for chaos to spread.


	7. Chapter 7

I entered Signal Combat School with quite a few expectations. I expected more scholastic rigor and student participation than back home, primarily because Patch seemed like a socialist paradise that gave every child a chance to get into academia from day one. I also expected Signal to be both alike and unlike any other school I went to before. Alike in that the core formula of young teenagers being educated can't differ that much across dimensions, and unlike in that these teenagers are being taught violence. The former involves paper and pencils, note-taking and numbers, and navigating the semi-complex social structure of the adolescent (which, again, is probably different from Earth Prime's, what with the existence of Grimm). That part I never worried about. A college student in high school (even after having to re-learn history and a few other subjects) was going to take to the material like a blowtorch to an ice cube.

It was the practical sections of the curriculum I was afraid of.

* * *

I move into Stance One to block the cut from the spearhead, Two-Step Retreat to avoid the spinning elbow, shift to Stance Two to block the butt of the spear that should come from Angle Four-

-which is actually the _spearhead_ coming from Angle _Eight_ that catches me across the face and sends me reeling. I shake it off and manage to deflect the next thrust with a clumsy backhand cut. Holi's eyes widen in surprise as her spear goes wide and she scrambles to recover as I knock her off balance

Sloppy, unprofessional, and the result of luck. But it worked, and now I have an opportunity to take advantage of.

I step forward and start the cutting, formal strikes drilled into me by countless hours of practice both in and out of school. High and low, right and left, nice and crisp. None of them connect. Holi dodges the first few with a bob n' weave, then her spear is back in her hands and my strikes slide off the haft like water off a roof. She dips low and I lose track of her weapon for a moment and jump back on instinct. The butt of the weapon whips past my face and I hear a whistle of appreciation from Holi as she pulls herself back up from a limbo even Hermes would've been jealous of, whirling the spear around her head. Then the whirling transitions into a cut at my side and I'm back on the defensive.

I know I need to close the distance. That I need to slip past the net of stabs, slices and bashes that she's been weaving around me since the start of the match.

That doesn't mean that I can actually do that.

I don't get the rhythm to her attacks. One minute they're machine-precise, straight out of the training book, the next they're some ridiculously over-the-top spins that only work because I'm not expecting them. I could rush past her attacks to land a hit by ignoring defense and letting my Aura tank it all. The problem with that is that she always gives better than she gets when I go for a suicide run, so all that happens is that I lose faster.

One of the transitions happens, her weapon winding around her body at an oblique angle to stab at me. I can't get my blades up in time and take it to the gut. My feet leave the ground (not an uncommon occurrence in a universe where being a superhero is a job) and I lose my grip on my swords. I roll twice, then hear the instructor's whistle.

"Loss by Ring Out, Laurel."

Damn.

I pick myself up off the ground, retrieve my practice swords, and stumble back into the ring. Holi is a nice girl, graceful both in defeat and in victory, and earns every one of her wins.

I keep telling myself that as I put on a brittle smile and reach out a hand. She gives me a grin back that's far more honest and clasps my forearm. We nod at each other then return to the stands, Holi heading for her empty-but-not-lonely bench (she made that very clear to everyone on the first day of spars) and me to my spot next to Yang, who's reclining against the bench behind her as she waits for her turn in the ring. I slump into the seat next to her, prop my weapons against the edge of the bench, and bury my face in my hands.

"She's on fire today," Yang says, and I preemptively groan. "You could almost say... it's a _Holi_ -day?"

"Yang, it wasn't the funny the first three times, it wasn't funny the next seven, and it's not funny now," I say, not lifting my head from my hands. "Now can I please just wallow in self-pity for a minute?"

"Fine, fine, be a killjoy," Yang says. The instructor calls her name, and I hear the tell-tale sound of tightening straps and clanking metal as she rises from her seat. "They're playing my song."

"Go get 'em, tiger," I say half-heartedly, raising my head from my mournful pose to watch her as she strides towards the stage. The poor schmuck going up against her clearly knows his odds and is clutching his longsword way too tightly as she approaches. I sit up straight, twist my back, and settle in for a show.

See, the first time I watched a spar at Signal, I was shocked. Not because everyone was _amazing_ , but because a lot of people _weren't_. I saw kids swinging around the wooden practice sticks like they were baseball bats, throwing punches with their thumbs inside their fists, and apparently next to none of them had ever trained with firearms before.

That's not to say they were all hopeless. There was a group of kids like Yang and I that had Hunter guardians that trained them before they enrolled. Then there were the unusually bright students who managed to figure out which end of the spear to stick someone with faster than their peers. Finally, there were the kids who just seemed to work _harder_ than everyone else. After about a week, the instructors had a pretty good idea of who stood where relative to one another: Legacy students at the top, then the prodigies, then the try-hards, then everyone else. As time went on, the prodigies dropped off, the try-hards picked up, and the gap between us legacies and the other 90% of the class continued to shrink. Not because the proportional gap in training got smaller, but because power growth on Remnant _isn'tlinear_.

When I learned this, I was shocked. When Yang learned I learned this, she was shocked that I was shocked. When I learned that she wasn't shocked, I spent a weekend discussing Hunter training with Tai and learned a few things.

First: formal training is not enough to make a good Hunter. Atlas developed several programs to mass-produce Hunters after the Great War in an attempt to replenish their supply, none of which out-performed or even matched any of the Hunter Academies in number or quality of graduates. While no conclusive experiments have been done to prove anything for certain, the popular theory is that Hunters need some level of organic development on their own, and by putting people into boxes Atlas had stifled that growth. The end result of this is a hilarious divide between Atlas's highly-disciplined and highly-uniform armed forces and their unusually colorful cadre of Huntsmen, who are encouraged to "be as groovy as possible" by the Headmaster of Atlas Academy.

Second: background is not a good predictor for success as a Hunter. This floored me, but the data was well collected and consistent. Hunters are a very well studied population, with exhaustive records dating back to the pre-firearm era. Long story criminally short, an orphan from Vacuo is only half as likely to graduate from a Huntsman academy as the children of extremely rich Hunters. When you take into account the high drop-out rate, the difference doesn't add up to more than one or two percent. Species is a factor, but that's been slowly becoming less and less of a problem as time goes on and only leads to statistically significant differences in the pre-academy schools.

Third: the rule of cool is actually a thing. Not in that being cool actually makes the world less murderous towards you, but in that Hunters with more unique weapons and fighting styles tend to have lower mortality rates. It's not a super strong correlation, but all of the longest-living Hunters are extremely distinctive. There are a few family lines with weapons passed down through them that can crack the top 10% in performance, but it's usually random individuals that carve their names into the history books. No one has any concrete reason why as no one's been able to force someone to develop their own style, but the correlation is there.

In other words, not only is Remnant maybe the most socially-developed society I've ever heard described, but it also hasn't developed nepotism among it's most influential demographic. I'd call it a miracle if it wasn't in response to an extinction-level threat that everyone was aware of.

Yang's fist crashes into the poor swordsman's stomach and he falls to his knees, gasping. A buzzer sounds.

"Your aura has dropped beneath safe levels, Royal. It is Xiao Long's victory." Yang leaves the stage with her arms raised triumphantly while her opponent staggers off towards the nursing station.

Yang's already developing her own style. Lots of movement, lots of jabs, and a surprising number of kicks and elbow strikes. Hard to predict, but it relies on keeping up the momentum. Break her rhythm and she gets set back to square one. That's easier said than done, though. She's probably one of the top three students here. Definitely way better than I am.

"How'd I do?" she asks, cocking a hip and smirking at me. I roll my eyes.

"I liked the part where he hit you in the face," I respond, smiling. Top three or not, she's still got holes in her defense. Yang scowls.

"He didn't hit me in the face. I disrupted his offense with my forehead," she says dismissively, sitting down next to me. "Anyway, what did you actually pick up on?"

"You're going for risky hits," I say, watching as two more students are called up to spar. "You see the smallest opening, you go for it, even if it makes more sense to hold back for a better opportunity."

"So... nothing new?" Yang sighs as she watches the adequate but unsatisfactory fight going on in front of us. "Any ideas about how to deal with it?"

"Are you still not okay with letting Ruby and I shoot at you until you learn to block?"

"No, I am still not okay with letting my little brother and little sister work out their feelings of intense jealousy on me!"

"We're the same age!"

* * *

It's a Saturday, which means only Tai and I are going to be up before ten. Me through a valiant war against my natural teenage life cycle, him through being a functional adult with a sane sleep schedule. We don't talk much while we recaffeinate, but once we're both properly awake we start making plans while making breakfast

"The zoo?" Tai suggests. I shake my head, cutting open a melon.

"We went three weeks ago. Ruby's probably still zoo'd out." The amount of recreational activities that are available on Remnant (despite the Grimm making travel logistics a nightmare) is kind of insane. Yang and I are kind of past the age where zoos are awesome, but we'll put up with it because Ruby likes the big cats so much.

"Movies?" Tai flips a pancake, then goes to another pan and checks on the pancake cooking in that one.

"Nothing new out." Turns out there _isn't_ a Star Wars equivalent here (though there is a Fast and Furious parallel called the Speedy and Savage, staring Spruce Willis), so I did what any good capitalist would do and promptly asked Ozpin to put me in contact with the local film industry. It's not going to be out for at least another few years (all I had was the plot and a few notes on sound and set design, so there are a _lot_ of gaps to be filled in), but it's something.

"The circus?" he offers over the sounds of cooking batter. I swipe the fruit into a bowl and shrug.

"Sounds like a plan." Animal cruelty aside, the circus is always a decent waste of time. Death-defying stunts, too-sugary treats, and hilarious clown antics. I have no idea how you top the physical feats of what a Huntsman does every day, but chances are the performers here have additional tricks up their sleeves.

"The circus it is." Tai says as he flips a pancake.


	8. Chapter 8

I'm pretty good at waiting. Part of that is preparation. A book, a phone, a sufficiently vivid imagination, there are a lot of things I can use to keep myself distracted. Worst case scenario, I can talk to myself and just deal with the awkward stares from strangers. Another part is experience. I've been arriving early to things for a looong time, and a side effect of that was sometimes dealing with the fact that not everyone is punctual. That means a lot of empty minutes, wondering if there is another human being who can keep a schedule.

I'm an old hand at delayed gratification. Yang and Ruby are not.

"Why are we here again?" Yang asks, winding some hair around her finger as she listlessly stares at a ring disappointingly empty of performers. Most of the audience is seated by now, but a few stragglers are still trickling in as the hot dog and candy apple vendors wander through the stands peddling sugar and empty calories.

"To see precisely how many peanuts it takes to send an elephant into a murderous rampage," I joke. "Then we'll see how long it takes Tai to punch it unconscious, win the heart of three or four fair maidens, then-"

"You were going to finish that sentence by describing how we'd all go back home and go straight to bed, right Midas?" Tai has that dangerous look in his eyes again so I stop talking and start nodding.

"Yup. That." Internally I roll my eyes. He gave me and Yang the talk as soon as Yang woke up with bloody sheets, but for some reason he's insistent on keeping Ruby in the dark. I don't have the heart to tell him that Yang and I already gave her the crash course nor the regenerative capacity to survive doing so.

Ruby yawns. "So, what's going to happen here again?"

Then the lights go dark.

I have a brief moment of panic as I try to figure out what's gone wrong, but then common sense kicks in. Calm down Midas, they're just turning out the lights to get people to shut up and pay attention. It's a shock tactic. Relax.

A circle of illumination appears over an entrance to the ring that I hadn't noticed before. It stays there for a moment as the silence stretches out. Then the click-clack of boots striking a hard surface rings out, growing louder, the echoes overlapping and resonating with one another until it's a near-cacophony.

Then the Ringmaster steps into the light.

The first thing I notice is that he's tall. Taller than Tai, taller than anyone I've ever seen. Part of that might be the striped tailcoat doing its job as an optical illusion, part of it could be lifts his shoes, and part of it is definitely the checkered top hat that must add at least a head and a half to his total height. The thing is, that doesn't really matter. He _feels_ tall in a way that sticks with me hundreds of feet away, even though I know a good bit of it is costume design and good showmanship.

Damn. He hasn't said a word and I'm already transfixed.

I wrench my gaze away for a moment to look at the Xiao Long family. Ruby's eyes are as wide as dinner plates, Yang's sitting up attentively in her seat, and Tai has his hands together as he leans forward, an expression of genuine interest on his face. Looks like the circus was the right call after all.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN." The voice _booms_ across the room, no other word coming close to describing the sheer _resonance_ of the speech. I turn back to the Ringmaster, family forgotten. He moves forward, steps suddenly silent. "BOYS AND GIRLS. INDIVIDUALS OF EVERY KIND. WELCOME." As the echoes of his voice fade away, the tent is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. He keeps walking, the spotlight never wavering as he enters the center of the ring.

He looks up at the crowd. His gazes travels over us, as if he's trying to make eye contact with his entire audience. "I HAVE GATHERED WITH ME A CIRCUS OF SPECTACLES. SIGHTS, SOUNDS, AND STUNTS OF EVERY VARIETY. YOU WILL SEE FEATS OF UNBELIEVABLE AGILITY. ILLUSIONS FIT TO WARP YOUR MIND. ANIMALS FROM AROUND THE WORLD." I can practically taste the tension in the air as his hands come up to adjust his hat and smooth out a non-existent wrinkle on his suit coat.

"IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE PEEP SHOW, YOU ARE IN THE WRONG PLACE."

I take a second to process what he said. Then I snort. Then I lose it and start guffawing, the sheer _oddity_ of the words sending me into near-convulsions.

Just.

 _What_?

I'm not alone. Everyone's laughing, the adults because they know what it means, the kids because the adults are laughing, a feedback loop of amusement. I see a grin slide across the Ringmaster's face before his regal composure returns.

"OUR FIRST ACT COMES FROM MISTRAL, BUT NOT FROM THE CITY'S STREETS. NO, THIS WOMAN SOARS FAR ABOVE THEM, MOVING BETWEEN WALL AND ROOF AND CORD HUNDREDS OF FEET IN THE AIR WITH TRANQUIL EASE. I BRING YOU... RAZBONE MATAZ!" He rolls the "r" and holds the final "z" as a woman falls from the ceiling above him, twisting and tumbling and _she's going too fast she's going to splat-_

No. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. She stopped with her face nearly touching the floor, a single ribbon, so thin as to be barely visible, stretching up from her ankle to the rafters. Long legs with green tattoos winding around them move from vertical to horizontal to touching the floor as she reorients herself with a limberness I would normally attribute to Hunter training or years of dancing. As she stands I see her mask for the first time, a full-face piece of purple glass without eyeholes.

Then she tugs twice on the ribbon, flies straight up into the air, and the show _really_ begins.

* * *

The show is genius. That's the only word for it.

It's not because they're _doing_ anything super out of the ordinary. The strong man couldn't out-lift Tai on his best day, the knife thrower isn't better with projectiles than the ranged combat teachers at Signal, the acrobats aren't doing anything that a trained Huntress couldn't, and the escape artists is slipping out of ropes half the people in my class could burst by flexing hard enough.

It's the packaging around the performance that really sells it.

Everyone is colorful, charismatic, and captivating. The Ringmaster has the audience spellbound the entire time, directing our gaze to _this sight_ , our ears to _that sound_ , constantly finding new ways to imbue wonder and surprise into what people should find pedestrian or repetitive. How many times can I see someone swing on a rope before it becomes boring? Apparently an infinite amount if the color commentary is good enough.

 _This_ is what one hundred levels in marketing looks like. It's pure curation, refined and mastered until the act of explaining the next attraction is an art form all on its own, a constant stream of hype and over-the-top intensity dressed in levels of dignity that would be garish if the whole thing wasn't _so damn well-done_. I can tell I'm being played, but it doesn't matter because he's made it so I _want_ to be played, to suspend my disbelief, to imagine that this is all actually magic.

Hell, it wouldn't be _that_ different from my normal life.

When the last act leaves the ring (a juggling troupe that managed to impress by using _actual flaming chainsaws_ at the end), the Ringmaster steps up one more time as the lights shut off in sequence, the tent slowly darkening until the only lamp left is shining on him. He adjusts his clothes imperceptibly, dragging out the moment with every movement, building tension at will. Then he speaks, voice booming out just as strong as it was at the beginning of the performance.

"THE NIGHT GROWS OLD, AND AS THE STARS COME OUT I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT WE MUST RETIRE." When the crowd starts complaining, I join them.

"Encore, encore!" I shout, waving a hand like a mad man.

"Come on, you've got to have a few more tricks up your sleeve!" Yang shouts beside me, cupping her hands around her mouth in an attempt to magnify the sound. Both of our pleas get lost among the rest of the shouting. The Ringmaster slowly shakes his head.

"THE MAGIC FLEES THE EVENING, BUT IT WOULD BE RUDE TO LEAVE YOU ALL ON SUCH A SOUR NOTE. BECAUSE OF THAT, I"LL SHOW YOU ONE. LAST. VISION." He magics a stick out of nowhere, maybe two feet long, and spread his arms, the rod in one hand and the other splayed wide. A beat starts up behind him, something with metal strings and nearly-inaudible voice. "BEHOLD."

He slowly raises the stick above his head, purple pouring out of the end and drawing glowing lines in mid-air. My eyes go wide and I lean forward, even as I hear Tai murmur something to himself next to me. That doesn't look like Dust. A Semblance? What's a Hunter-trained person doing in a circus? The Ringmaster starts dancing, feet coming down in time with the music, stick being tossed between his hands with increasing speed, more lines of purple carving an image into existence. Teeth, all canines, form at one end. Stripes, irregular and closely spaced, fill in the middle. Four legs, tall as a man and ending in claws that look more like daggers. A tail, at the end of which is the Ringmaster, who's finally stopped his movements.

Before him is a three-dimensional sketch of a tiger. Impressive for a speed draw, but the stick is still attached to the tail, the Ringmaster is still poised, and we all wait with baited breath.

He whips his arm...

 _And the tail moves._

The rest of the tiger follows suit, black emptiness filling in the gaps between the lines. It's huge, a mammoth beast that could eat me and still have room for dessert. It roars and I can feel the popcorn kernels by my feet vibrate.

Holy shit.

The beast starts pacing, tail separating from the stick in a flash of purple sparks. At first, it sniffs the ground, pawing at the straw and ignoring everything else. Then it looks up, and I can see the ripple of motion in the crowd in front of it as they lean back, trying to put as much space between themselves and the tiger as possible.

It takes a step towards them. I hear wood creak next to me and turn. Tai's getting up, knees bent and ready to jump.

"SIT!"

The words jerks my head back towards the ring. The Ringmaster is facing down the tiger, somehow dwarfing his own creation. It growls up at him, baring its fangs and turning to face him more fully. The Ringmaster raises his stick, the purple glow once more at the end of it, and swings it. A whip of magenta starlight emerges, splitting the air with a noise somewhere between a rumble and the sound of rubber tearing. I blink.

 _What?_

"SIT!"

The tiger sits.

For the rest of the show the audience is silent. The Ringmaster commands the tiger, putting it through rings, onto balance beams, and has it take his head into its mouth. When he comes out no worse for wear, I heave a sigh of relief. He has the beast roll over, stand on its hind legs, and rides it for a lap around the ring. Once he dismounts, he has it sit next him.

"I THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PATRONAGE TONIGHT," he says, addressing us all. "I LEAVE YOU WITH MEMORIES, TIRED EYES, AND PERHAPS A SOUVENIR." There's a chuckle at that and I think I see the elusive grin on his face again. "BUT I HAVE SPOKEN TOO MUCH ALREADY AND KEPT TOO MANY HEAVY HEADS FROM SOFT PILLOWS. TO THAT END, I BID YOU GOODNIGHT AND GOOD DREAMS. FAREWELL." His hand slashes down, there's a flash of light, and by the time my vision has recovered the Ringmaster and the tiger are both gone. The lights come back up, ushers appear, and once more the salesmen descend on the crowd. Meanwhile, I keep thinking about that last act.

It was a Semblance. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Something like the Schnee summoning, but also distinctly _not_. I don't think Weiss or Winter ever had such an elaborate little ritual to get their monsters. That, and they didn't have to cajole it into obeying. Maybe that part was showmanship, maybe not, but either way it's weird.

"Hey, Golden Boy." I turn towards Yang's voice, who in turn jerks her head at Tai and Ruby. "We're heading out. Unless you want to walk home, you might want to get moving."

I shake my head, dispersing random thoughts. Time enough for speculation later. "Yeah yeah Goldilocks," I say, using the nickname that apparently makes no sense in this world. "I'm coming." Yang falls in step beside me as we exit the tent with Tai, whose supporting a sleepy-looking Ruby as he fumbles for his keys.

"So..." I say, looking at Yang, who looks back at me expectantly. "Favorite part?"

"The ribbons," she says, without a shred of hesitation. I snort. Of course the aerial silks take the cake. Everyone loves seeing extremely fit individuals on the planet tangle themselves up in bedsheets a hundred feet off the ground.

"Clearly it was the fire breathing man on the unicycle, but I'll forgive your transgression," I say, instinctively blocking the punch to my shoulder Yang uses to express her disdain.

"Ooh, look at me, I can ride a bike _and_ imitate a dragon at the same time," Yang says sarcastically. "This takes _sooo_ much skill."

"Ooh, look at me, I'm climbing a rope really artistically," I mock back. "Clearly I'm the most coordinated one." That, and I still don't know how fire-breathing works. It must be more than just spritzing the air with booze, otherwise everybody would do it.

"Still better than the clowns," Tai chimes in. "Visual comedy is for the feeble-minded. I _jest_ think that those _bozos_ could do better if they actually talked." I feel myself die a little more inside as Yang laughs and Ruby groans next to him.

"Dad, it's way too late for puns. Can we go home already?"

"Yes please," I add, moving to the passenger seat. "Shotgun." I savor the look of anguish on Yang's face as I slide into the car and stretch out. Ah, seat superiority. The ultimate comeback.

On the way back home we continue to bicker about the circus. Tai adds in the odd pun, Ruby nods off halfway through the drive, and Yang and I come around to the question of learning how to do the stunts themselves.

"Okay, so maybe getting out of the chains without breaking them would be tricky. But how much harder do you think the trapeze is than, y'know, parkour?" I ask. I mean, the falls look a lot worse but hey, nets.

"Midas, you would face plant in about five seconds," she states flatly. "But if you want to try, be my guest."

"Funny you should mention trying," Tai says, waving a pamphlet with one hand as he keeps his eyes on the road. "They're going to be in town for a while, and one of the things they're doing is offering lessons. Does that sound like something cool?"

I shrug. "I'm game." I'm not sure if they're going to let a teenager learn how to breath fire, but it still sound better than trying and failing yet again to design a weapon that's practical, flashy _and_ unique. "You up for it, Yang?"

"Still looking forward to that face-plant," she says, and I catch sight of her grin in the rearview mirror. "Anyway, I'm willing to put my life on the _lion_!"

I let my head fall to the dashboard and groan. Damnit Yang.

We get home and everyone attends to their nightly rituals, which includes storytime. I run through an abbreviated version of the first act of the Princess and the Frog, after which Tai decrees that it is to darn late to be up and sends us to bed, drawing a chorus of yawns in agreement.

When I sleep, I dream of whirling pins, colors dancing in mid-air, and the tiger.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **So...**

 **This story is dead. It's not complete and I'm not marking it as such, but I'm not going to finish it. The reason for this is that I took a long, hard look at RWBY and realized that I didn't really want to work with the source material.**

 **If you enjoyed this, sorry. If not, this note's probably not going to be read by you, so eh.**

 **I'll post the notes I have on future arcs after this, but this is the last prose chapter.**

 **T0PH4T, signing off.**


	9. Notes

**Macro Notes:**

Themes: Self-worth, ideas vs reality, deciding when to put one's own happiness first.

Focus of the story:

Big Bads:

Salem: Now funding/assisting the radical arm of the White Fang. Never shows up, but she's the little things that make life difficult.

Adam/Roman/Neo are all bigger deals than canon. Roman is forced to play along by threat of Tyrian to the face, Adam gets into canon earlier and is the sort of threat that forces people to disengage or die.

Sienna Khan is eventually roped into agreeing with them when Adam's actions kill an anti-Faunus politician with a lot of influence.

Don't Skip Signal:

Raised by a Hunter vs raised by civilians

Being at the top of the class

High failure rates

The Grimm side of teaching kids to be soldiers

Making the weapon/working with the ideological angle of being a Hunter (you can't just use a gun and a knife).

* * *

 **Signal Arc**

1) First Day. Theoretical scores are good, practical scores are good. As time goes on, SI doesn't move past the center of the pack. It'd be fine if he wanted to be a soldier or policeman, but it's not enough. He's mimicking, not innovating, and can't settle into one style.

2) A circus comes to town. Goes there, sees stunts that have to be Aura-infused. Ends up talking to a performer who's on their day off, and tries to juggle. Fails, but still interested in it. The next day, he adds a little flair. It's objectively worse than his normal fighting style, but it's more fun.

3) Has a lot of spare time and knows that over-training, even with Aura, is a thing (mental, not physical, exhaustion). Decides to spend some time at the circus, and starts learning a few tricks. Combat scores start to go back to his baseline, and his practical scores drop a little.

4) One of the acrobats gets injured in practice, and they need a spare. It's during a school day, and SI blows off so he can sub in. Kills it. Misses a day of school, but it's one day. Right?

5) SI starts performing himself, and is good. Building camaraderie with other performers, learning other tricks, and even making some money. Skips more school. He's still there for major tests, but people are talking behind his back.

6) School calls. Tai is pissed. SI realizes that he's f**ked up. Circus has been in one place for too long. He has to choose.

7) Spends all weekend forging his weapon with Ruby. The circus moves on, SI shows up to sparring class with a new outfit and a new weapon. Demolishes one, then two, then LOTS of other students using an unorthodox but extremely effective fighting style and "creative" tools (including water balloons filled with pig's blood, what is basically pepper spray, and tactical flirting). Finishes the year with barely-acceptable grades, but makes up for it with a Hunter's persona, which he finally gets on an emotional level, as opposed to an intellectual one.

Interlude: Ruby PoV. We see how mature she is, what she thinks of Midas, and the new tricks she's thought up. Reveal that where Yang and Tai teach her sense, Midas teaches dirty tricks via stories about people like Loki, Taylor, Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, Tyrion Lannister, the Joker, and Ender Wiggin.

* * *

 **Graduation Arc**

People can try hard... and fail. Two tests, one theoretical (Law, Psychology and other stuff) and one practical (a mock mission with lots of oversight and a high failure rate).

1) SI is in a group of students and wonders at the number of potential hunters. Yang and he are close, but while Yang has a fair number of friends (and Ruby even has a group), he's more or less alone. While that's fine, it's not satisfying.

2) Girl approaches him, asking for help. He's confused (doesn't think it's that hard) but agrees to work with her.

3) After a few sessions, the girl asks for a private training. He gives it. There are a few things that could be interpreted as innuendo. He suggests more meetings, she agrees. Yang overhears this at lunch, explains to him that she thinks they're dating, trigger Semblance (Gallant-lite emotion/Aura sensing, along with Grimm detection). Sudden increase in combat skill (b/c he can get a little more warning about attacks).

4) Now that SI is aware of the romance, he tries hard to be worthy of it. She notices the change, he explains that he didn't know, they both laugh. We learn a little more about both of them, and the study sessions are elaborated upon. He tries to focus on the content, she focuses on the romance. Yang/Ruby/her friends medaling hijinks.

5) Midterm thing (big test) is coming up. It's a practical, where students get thrown to the Beowolves (Teachers ready to interfere). SI is hyped, the girl isn't but they agree to team up. They have a heavier-than-usual session, but stop short of straight-up sex. Groping, though.

6) Test comes and the girl is not ready for it. She's scared, doesn't like fighting Grimm, and part way through flakes out, running to a teacher and quitting. SI is devastated and teams with Yang for the rest of the test, and the two of them clean house, along with two or three other students.

7) They meet after the test, and the two of them have a heart to heart. SI is not going to give up being a Hunter, and the girl wants a lower-risk job. They part with a kiss, but they both agree they're two different people. The girl goes into a different program, one for police officers, and SI goes to the new classroom, where people who passed the test are. It's Yang, him, and four other people, from a class of dozens. He sits down, and there's a time-skip to Beacon.

Interlude: Ozpin. We get his thoughts on bringing Ruby into Beacon early (it's going to happen), on how things are going (an improvement), and Midas's latest film idea (an animated film about a fish that got lost). Close on him considering the Salem problem, along with a few other things, like Leo's removal and the meaning of extra realites.

* * *

 **Character Notes**

Teams:  
SI/Weiss & Pyrrha/Ruby: PRSM (Prism)

Jaune/Yang & Nora/Ren: RAYN (Rain)

Individual Character Arcs:

 **Weiss** :

Ruby: Needs to learn that Ruby is worthy of respect, and that also that silly doesn't mean weak. Also needs to learn to let people try to help her.

Pyrrha: Needs to learn how to separate professional and private life. Sure, try to talk about paying the Invincible Girl for lessons and becoming the most powerful girls in school together, but Pyrrha needs you as a friend.

Midas: How to get along with people who have different opinions on what matters, the novel.

Weiss: Learn that the Schnee name is just a name, it's what she makes of it. Repairing her relationship with her father, Whitley, and Willow.

 **Ruby** :

Weiss: Un-fun doesn't mean evil, and sometimes you do just have to listen to the people up top. More to the point, Weiss isn't like family, and getting used to her is going to take time.

Pyrrha: People want different things from different people. Sometimes, they don't want to give stuff. Ruby needs to learn boundaries with Pyrrha, what she can/can't ask for, and when she needs to step up and be assertive for Pyrrha.

Midas: Big brother wants to hang out with other people and you need to spread your wings. Also, you need to learn how to be his peer, which means earning and giving respect.

Ruby: Growing up and learning humility.

 **Yang** :

Jaune: Learning when to press him and when to hold back. Not everyone is Hunter-trained from birth, and her roughhousing scares people.

Nora: They feed off one another, sometimes getting a little too hyped up.

Ren: Leave the boy alone.

Yang: Abandonment issues and letting Ruby take serious risks.

 **Jaune** :

Yang: Yang is a lot MORE than he's used to, and while she ends up toning it down he also has to deal with some ego-deflation.

Nora: How do I manage all this craziness?

Ren: His only bro, who also doesn't talk much.

Jaune: Learning the expectations of being a Hunter, as well as what is/isn't okay. Tries to hit on Yang. Once.

 **Nora** :

Yang: Feeding off one another, but learning to do it responsibly.

Ren: Growing a little more mature and asking him out.

Jaune: Not everyone plays as rough.

Nora: Coming to terms with being a bubbly bubble bubble while also being mature. Think Ruby but less "I'm the best!" and more "Okay, so this is what adults do!"

 **Ren** :

Jaune: How do I interact with males?

Yang: Why does Nora think Yang is hitting on me/I kind of like Yang hitting on me.

Nora: When Nora asks him out, how does he respond? "I'm not quite ready."

Ren: Having more emotion than literally a sloth. Or her just isn't a huge part of the story.

 **Pyrrha** :

Ruby: Interacting with children. That, and learning what it means to have a partner.

Weiss: Weiss comes from a very different background, and that changes how she interacts with people.

Midas: Some people want you. Some people don't. You want some people to want you, so go out there and be fucking assertive.

Pyrrha: Learning how to be a "normal" girl, as well as BEING FUCKING ASSERTIVE.

* * *

 **Initiation**

Yang and SI on the plane, talking shit with Ruby, who got there for being just that good. SI spies some of the main cast, but doesn't go over to them. Starts playing mental-matchmaker. Yang also asks why he has two backpacks and a shield, SI says not to worry about it.

Leaves Yang for a hot minute to scout out the competition. Walks with Weiss, comes across as weird but not an idiot. Ruby walks with him, and he watches them blow up a little with a smile on his face. Meets up w/ Yang again at Ozpin's speech (it's different). Night of, convinces Jaune not to wear a onesie, unlocks his Aura, and gives him a backpack. For initiation. Spies Pyrrha across the hall, looking lonely, and takes a moment to say high. They chat, he doesn't talk about her fame and she doesn't tell, and he jokes about initiation, which she goes along with. They say goodbye and he goes to bed next to Yang and Ruby after swapping stories.

Day of initiation, SI finds Jaune chatting up Weiss next to Pyrrha w/o his backpack on. Drags his ass away and fixes that, explaining that he needs to pull the tab when he's in the air. Cue call to cliffside, cue some oddly-worded questions to Glynda, cue a student being launched, cue use of explosives under the shield to get a head start, use of parachute, and map knowledge to get to the ruins w/o touching the ground. Decides to let the cards fall where they may and waits at the ruins, twirling a knight piece and singing.

Meets Weiss, who glyph-dashed to the end, thinking that they would be graded on their performance. Argument over leaving (Weiss wants to because marks, SI wants to see future teammates). Ruby arrives and picks the other knight piece, which Midas has... mixed feelings about. Pyrrha is next, goes wooden at seeing Weiss again, but Midas jokes "fourth, huh?" at which point a pseudo-argument starts.  
Then Nora, Ren, Yang and Jaune all arrive, Deathstalker in tow.

Run to overpass, decision to fight when no one wants to chance the bridge. Weiss takes charge and Jaune backs her up. Ruby and Weiss move to hinder mobility, Pyrrha and Jaune start blocking pincers, Yang and Nora go badass on the head, and the SI and Ren deal with the tail.

Teaming ceremony. People go back to their rooms. Yang's a little sad she's not on a team with family, Midas low-key jokes about sneaking into Jaune's room to sleep in the same bed, like when they were kids, and Nora adds a bit about how she still tries to do that with Ren, who walks into the room and collapses on the bed. PRSM in the room, people agree to leave future discussion/plans for tomorrow morning because DAMN that's tiring.

* * *

 **Settling In**

Morning habits are revealed. SI, Weiss, and Pyrrha are early risers. Ruby is not. The three of them go running. RAYN has Nora and Ren up, but they're cooking downstairs, not training. Yang and Jaune are out of it, and the run escalates into a race between Midas and Pyrrha while Weiss remains sane and completes her laps at her own speed. Back at the room, Weiss calls dibs on first shower, walks into the bathroom, then leaves, red-faced. Ruby was already there and didn't have the curtain closed. SI blinks and asks Weiss if she's into girls. Weiss says yes, but she's not into jailbait. There's still a blush and the SI sits back and thinks while Pyrrha is standing there awkwardly.

Port's class, and exposition on academic schedule at Beacon. Ren uses it as nap time and Nora tests how many things she can balance on Ren's head. Yang and Ruby nod off. Jaune is clearly out of his league. SI, Weiss, and Pyrrha try to take notes. SI becomes obsessed with finding out the true meaning behind Port's lessons, and Ruby tries to show off by killing the Boarbatusk. It doesn't work.

Oobleck's lesson is more engaging, if only just. He focuses on going over the syllabus, which is pre Great War to modern Faunus Rights movement chronologically. This draws a laugh from Cardin, which sparks the whole discussion. SI discovers Weiss is low-key actually racist, ends up arguing against her, and things are... not great. Class ends and they're frosty, with Pyrrha and Ruby looking on nervously.

Goodwitch's class. Random fights until Goodwitch can make people fight comparable opponents, starting with team PRSM and an OC team of second-years. PRSM dominates. Pyrrha doesn't take a hit, Ruby loses but makes the second year feel so bad they almost ring-out (taunts primarily), Weiss manages to win a fight while taking minimal damage and the SI beats his opponent into the ground with their own spear and some dirty tricks. Goodwitch calls SI and Ruby in to discuss ring manner. They point out that it's an effective strategy and other people are welcome to try it. Goodwitch asks for a list of things that they use, and she'll veto the ones she thinks go too far.

Come the afternoon, Weiss already wants to start working on homework. Ruby complains, Weiss insists, there's a small fight. Midas and Pyrrha siding with the opposite partner and defuse it, but they both know it'll be part of a bigger problem. Ruby asks for storytime with Yang, Midas doesn't joke about it (Ruby's a little steamed) and they leave to let Pyrrha and Weiss talk. The Xiao Long/Rose/Laurel group go to a lounge, talk for a bit about their teams, get the Guardians of the Galaxy part one, and when they go to bed Ruby has a bit more grace, Weiss accepts the apology, and things are less bad.

Yang Interlude: She pulls Jaune aside after combat class and tells him he's not good enough. Jaune says he has to do it himself. Yang allows him to do this if he can land one hit. He doesn't. She shows him basic footwork. Jaundice arc avoided.

Pyrrha interlude: She's not used to doing things in groups, so when Midas tells everyone "it's movie night" she has no idea what to expect. PRSM goes out to Vale, lines up at the theatre, and Pyrrha and Midas put on a fake light-saber fight while they wait in line. Time skip to after they've finished A New Hope, everyone is _excited_. Ruby wants to make Crescent Rose a lightsaber, Weiss talks about how the movie got the economics and scale right, and Pyrrha notes that she saw Midas's name on the list of producers. Ruby explains that he's a storyteller, and from then on Pyrrha is an occasional visitor to Ruby's storytime.

* * *

 **Fallout**

Oobleck's class. The Faunus issue has come up again and he and Weiss are going at it. Oobleck tells them to go into the city and do research. Ruby and Pyrrha nervously offer to help them after class, but the two of them refuse, citing a need to prove the other wrong.

They go into the city and it's bad. Like, 1940's Harlem bad. Midas is fucking confused and Weiss is more or less grimmly content. Midas asks how she can stomach this. Weiss reveals that the White Fang have been WAY more aggressive than canon. Midas mumbles to himself, and Weiss also reveals that she's lost family to them. Midas asks who. Winter. They return to Beacon and Midas doesn't go to story time with Ruby.

When Weiss and Pyrrha get, Midas has to be woken. When they go running, he doesn't rise to the challenge. Port's lesson is a blank page, Oobleck only gets token participation, and in Goodwitch's class he loses Yang by aura out. Ruby asks what's up. He gives an evasive answer. Weiss comments that Pyrrha, Ruby and Yang had asked her what he saw, she told them, and she's just as much in the dark as anyone else. She asks him what's up. He doesn't answer.

In Port's class he comes to a conclusion. He fucked up. Maybe this is better. Maybe it's not. Either way, he is at least partially culpable. As a result, it's up to him to unfuck this goose. He starts planning. In Oobleck's class he's pressing for ways to improve the Faunus situation, which still irritates Weiss, but also offers some relief to his friends.

Friday arrives. He tells everyone he's going out, and not to expect him back until Sunday. He tells them he's off to chase tail. At a hotel room, he goes full Joker, heads to Junior's, and asks him for information. It gets violent, he uses a different weapon and his Semblance, he cleans house, and Junior gives him the info. He leaves. His card.

Saturday night he raids the White Fang storehouse. Semblance lets him avoid being spotted and he goes Far Cry on the place until there's one room left. They prepare to leave and he tries to snag one of them. It doesn't work because the other person knocks them out of the way. The new assailant and Midas engage in a running battle, and while he's better than the new person, it's the difference between him and Ren or him and Weiss, not him and the Malachite twins. He gets close and throws a hit. Clone. "Holy shit. Blake." Blake runs and he's got a whole new series of questions.

Interlude: Roman. We get the skinny on how the White Fang are gearing up for a major offensive in Vale and using Roman to acquire armaments and space. Roman is not cool with it, but Blake and Adam are fucking scary. We see him talk with Neo about murdering the two of them to GTFO, but they aren't ready yet. Close on him smoking a cigar, head whirling with plans.

* * *

 **Blake Arc:**

SI is confused as fuck when he gets back on Sunday. Yang comments that he doesn't have any love bites, so he takes off his shirt and shows them the whips from where Blake managed to land a few hits. Weiss throws a pillow at him, Ruby and Pyrrha blush, and he sends a suggestive wink Jaune's way. Situation defused, classes resume.

He's turns over what Blake being in the White Fang means, and decides that he needs to go out and figure stuff out. On the other hand, friends. So he needs to convince them to leave him alone on weekends, and he also needs a way to Vale. The solution is clearly to buy a car and sleep in Ports class, staying up way late to go out and fight terrorists. This can ONLY GO WELL.

Purchases a purple supercar he does not know how to drive. That is to show off to the crew. The real crime car is a non descript Toyota Camry equivalent that's parked next to it, "clearly" another student's, with the real plates covered by stolen ones. He goes into town late at night, hits up a second place and runs into only mooks. Leaves a calling card, with "miss u bae" written on the wall in lipstick.

Fast forward. He's clearly tired, but he's smiling and laughing and tells everyone it's just school getting to him. True enough, his grades are slipping. Weiss expresses outrage, he jokes, Ruby is concerned. He's losing a lot of his little contests with Pyrrha. On the other hand, he got called "that clown mother fucker!" at the fourth warehouse, so he's clearly doing something right. He takes a night off. Then another one. Then he goes out again.

This time he runs into Blake. Problem: Neo shows up shortly after. SI manages to not die thanks to surprise sniper fire, and he bugs the fuck out after asking Blake for a peaceful meeting over coffee and teasing her with a line from Ninjas of Love, which she reacts to.

SURPRISE, it's Ruby. She noticed he was messed up early on, and worked with Pyrrha to keep track of where he was going at night. They always left when he was wrapping up. When he asked how they kept up, Ruby says that she ran. Pyrrha? She took the supercar. Of course. When he gets back, Ruby puts him into bed, but she also makes him promise to talk to everyone. He does.

Interlude: Blake. Just after the fight, we see what the White Fang have become, a true-blue terrorist group. Blake and Adam do not get along. They can work together, but it's clear that one of them wants big flashy thing while the other wants assassinations. Blake goes to bed, reading a book, and starts thinking about meeting this clown guy.

* * *

 **Team Blake Arc**

Midas gathers everyone into a room. He explains that he's been going after WF these past few weeks. Yang explodes, Pyrrha is angry, Ruby is sad, Weiss worried for him and asks why, he seemed pro-Faunus. He is. On the other hand, terrorism is bad. Fanatical ideologies are bad. He should know. He remembers home. Ruby and Yang's eyes are bugging out and he plows on. The White Fang need to either shut down or get new leadership. And for a reason he needs to be involved. Ruby offers to help. So does Yang. He looks around the room. Jaune is the next to offer. Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora follow suit. Weiss shakes her head and agrees. Revenge is a dish best served ice cold. Yang groans.

Jump cut to another night. Midas and Jaune are cleaning house at a smaller warehouse. Ruby is off in a sniper's nest, providing cover, Jaune is using a sword and shield that don't look like Croeca Mors and has a motorcycle helmet with a knight motif. They call the police, Midas leaves a card, and they leave. We get a recap of the past few weeks and the operating procedure:

Random number of days between strikes.

Three person patrols.

Midas or Pyrrha have to be one of the three.

Everyone has a new weapon and a new persona. For Jaune, it's a small change. For Weiss, she's wearing a black raincoat and weiding a Dust longsword. Pyrrha also has to dress up, but she weant for the Harley Quinn route, with knives and a short sword. Everyone has new weapons and outfits, bankrolled by Midas and Weiss.

One day Yang comes back and shows Midas a note. It has Blake's emblem on it, along with a riddle that you'd have to read Ninjas of Love to understand. When he deciphers it, he learns that Blake wants a meeting in plainclothes and that the date is tomorrow. Midas wants to go, Weiss wants an ambush. Cue an argument. Weiss asks why he wants to save a terrorist. He gives her a speech about group dynamics, drawing upon examples from Earth. He points out that Weiss knows a lot of them, and asks if she can sympathize. She can't. She says there's something different about bombing a coffee shop from making a board decision. Midas agrees, but he's still going to do it and he wants Weiss's word that she won't interfere. Weiss promises she won't strike first.

Parley. Blake and Midas meet in a coffee shop by a bookstore. Weiss, Pyrrha, and Yang are nearby. They're awkward for a bit before finally getting down to business. Blake asks how he knows her, Midas evades. He asks how a girl who reads so much can be a terrorist. She answers that it was a lot of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and that it got results. Midas agrees, but he also points out some of those results aren't great. Blake nods. She wants out. The White Fang are gearing up for a real attack, something big, and while Blake is down with assasination, a civil war serves no one. Midas asks if she'd be willing to speak with his boss. She doesn't trust him enough yet. He asks what he can do to inspire trust. She tells him to stop attacking. Midas shakes his head. How about more of these coffee dates? Talk, build empathy, and when she feels comfortable do whatever. Blake agrees and they set a schedule.

Montage. Nights fighting Blake and Roman, and running away from Adam and Neo. Mornings talking with Blake, a friend nearby if things go south. At first it's about anything other than work. Then he broaches the subject through a book, asking how Blake would do it. Slowly, they start talking about effective and ineffective methods of changing public opinion. Weiss is growing more and more tense, Pyrrha is worried, and Ruby is cautious. Everyone thinks this can only end poorly. Midas thinks they're overreacting. Then halfways through his cup a bull faunus with red hair shows up and tells Blake to come with him.

Refuge in audacity. Midas claims that he's on a date with Blake and demands to know what's going on, all while pressing the panic button. Blake tries to de escalate. It doesn't work. Adam throws a punch. Midas hops out of the way. Ren and Nora in their alt-ID's show up outside, and Midas pretends not to know them. Adam and Blake come out, then flee. Ren and Nora pursue for as long as they can, but the Beauty and the Beast are too good at evading authorities, and Midas can't team up with them in public. When they get back, Weiss demands that the meetings stop. Midas disagrees. Pyrrha backs Weiss, as does Yang, Nora, Ren, and Ruby. The last one shocks him. Jaune abstains, but he also tells Midas that he will tie him to his bed if he has to.

In the coming days, the raids are increasingly unsuccessful. The White Fang are getting better and better at compartmentalizing, and eventually Midas, Weiss, and Ruby are out patrolling with no target in mind. Midas is scanning with his Semblance, but it's just a bunch of Faunus up late at night. After a long, empty, frustrating patrol, they head back. He starts changing, checks for teachers, and realizes they've picked up a tail. He, Weiss and Ruby pursue and catch the spy. It's Blake, looking a lot worse for wear. She wanted out, and after being discovered Sienna Khan was going to transfer her back to Menagerie. But you're working with a Schnee!? Weiss is ready to kill, Ruby is NOT okay with that, and Midas determines that the situation is fucked enough to call Ozpin.

Ozpin sits in his office, looking at the nine of them with a flat expression. Ozpin explains, in great detail, why this was an unbelievably bone-headed thing to do. He gives each of them a once-over, picking apart their motivations, until he comes to Blake. There, he asks her why she decided to come here. She talks about not being okay with mass-murder. Assassination? Yes. Ozpin sips his coco. Then he explains why he's not going to expel them. Basically, it's a waste of prime hunter material and (more to the point) they didn't get caught. They will get a "pass" on their transgressions. Instead, they are to stop going out at night, leave all this to the proper authorities, and help the school for free. They all agree, and Midas and Blake are held back while the rest of them leave. Ozpin addresses both Blake and Midas. Blake he gives a much more thorough interview, which leads into awkward questions she still answers. After being assured she's not going to kill a student, he dismisses her to RAYN's dorm. Midas he asks why. Midas explains the sense of culpability. In return Ozpin explains that he understands all of his reasoning, but he was wrong. Midas agrees, but also says that he couldn't do nothing, citing deontological reasoning. Ozpin sighs and dismisses him, parting with a note about also making mistakes.

Interlude: Weiss. We learn about her view of her team, as well as her level of fear towards Blake. The next morning she goes to breakfast with a dagger (like Russell's), Midas frowns, Pyrrha nods, and Ruby objects. Blake understands. Blake and Weiss in class together as a "transfer student." Weiss is really ramping up the casual, sometimes blatant racism. They meet in the communal bathrooms (Midas is showering in the personal one and Ren in RAYN's), Weiss is staring at Blake's naked (and lightly scared) form all the damn time, and eventually it blows up into a shouting match. Blake explains all the shit she's gone through, Weiss explains the shit she's gone through, lets out a tear in frustration, and eventually they both are emotionally drained. Blake explains that she just wants out. That it's not worth it. Weiss explains that she also wants that, but she can't get it. A tiny amount of empathy springs up and they leave, cleaned and less murdery than before.

* * *

 **Timeskip: First mission.**

Things have a new status quo. Weiss, Pyrrha, and Midas are all still waking up early to train, Ren and Nora still get up early to cook, and everyone else sleeps in. When they go to class, Blake is there in the back, staying silent. Weiss has toned back on the overt racism, and is more or less just socially conservative. He and Pyrrha have started their games again, and Blake listens in on storytime with his sisters. He and Blake exchange books, and Blake's been mingling with RAYN a fair amount.

Goodwitch, after combat class (we get a snapshot of him fighting with Weiss) announces that first missions are coming up. Midas sends a text to Ozpin, who texts back "yes, I will be careful. Mountain Glenn is safe." Midas heaves a sigh of relief, and after changing Weiss decides to go pick out missions, and the team follows along. Eventually, they settle on Grimm extermination after everyone besides Midas vetoes morale improvement. Midas shrugs and rolls with it. They've got a week to prepare, so Midas does the logical thing and buys some booze. On the way back to Beacon he sees Yang, who had the same idea.

There's a party. Well, more like a hang-out with a minimum drinks limit. Ruby nurses her one drink for a LONG time, Ren watches Nora with increasing levels of despair, Yang and Jaune are having a grand old time, and Pyrrha and Weiss are a little more bubbly than normal. Blake... is morose. That is, until Yang glomps her between herself and Jaune. Turns out, Blake is going with team RAYN on a sherif-shadowing mission. This calls for another round of drinks. Eventually, Ruby falls asleep and goes back to the dorm, a bottle of vodka runs empty, and Yang does the logical thing. Kisses will be random, and team PSM heads back to the dorm before midnight, a new memory in their minds. Pyrrha leans on Midas a little more heavily than he expects, but they all get to bed.

Timeskip. RAYN left a day earlier with Oobleck, Blake in tow. Team PRSM departs and Weiss goes over the expected area of engagement, method of engagement, and priorities, which are yourself, your team, civilians, and Grimm, in that order. Ruby objects. Weiss explains why it makes sense. Pyrrha and Midas agree. Ruby appeals to denatology. Weiss says that if she does that she'll tell the bullhead to turn around. Ruby can tell he's not joking. She agrees. Cue emergency transmission.

It's a village, besieged by Grimm. Ruby says to help. Weiss says yes and the bullhead starts moving. Pre-combat checks for everyone. Weiss is on the radio and pulls out the new detail. Multiple ways to engage are thought up. Eventually, it's decided that Weiss and Pyrrha will play defense while Ruby and Midas go out and try to lure away the Grimm. ETA thirty seconds. Five. Four. Three. Two.

One. Midas and Ruby fall out of the sky and into the horde. Beowolves, Ursa, and a single King Taiju. Midas zeroes in on the big target, while Ruby does her trailer thing and Beowolf arms start flying everywhere. Sniper fire and freaky projectiles rain down from above as Weiss and Pyrrha move towards the town. Epic fight is epic, culminating in some trapeze-looking stunts that end with half a dozen implements in one head as Ruby cuts off the other. Then they head back towards the town.

Pyrrha and Weiss are holding the line. More than that, they're doing it without tiring. Weiss has iced up walls to concentrate the Grimm into one place and Pyrrha's the goddess of victory we've always known her to be. Midas is awestruck for a full second before he notices she's counting. Then he runs towards the largest pack of Grimm he can see and gets stabbing. Mild time jump and the Grimm are gone. Midas wipes away some sweat, Ruby is staggering, Weiss is leaning against a post, and Pyrrha's looking flushed. The villagers come out, thank them, and they end up deciding to stay to make sure the place stays safe. Weiss calls Beacon and a Huntress will be dispatched, but for now they need to sit tight.

Here, we get an in-depth look at what being a Hunter means, beyond thinning the Grimm from time to time. They're supposed to bring happiness and joy to the people, push back negative feelings. At first, everyone is doing it wrong. Ruby accidentally talks about dead people, Weiss terrifies some children, Pyrrha misreads people and tries to treat them as fans, and Midas is entirely too cavalier. End result: thanks, but fuck you.

The next day the team is more subdue. It works, kinda, but they're not actually making things better. Day two is a failure, but at least they're not backsliding. Midas takes first watch, and he juggles some knives while trying to think up something. He notices kids watching, then gets an idea.

Next day, he strings a tightrope between the two tallest buildings that are still standing in the town. Ruby promptly drops everything and waits for the show. Weiss and Pyrrha follow, along with a lot of the other kids. Once the crowd is large enough, Midas walks out to the middle and shows off his circus skills.

This cues everyone to use their specific talents. Ruby starts working with kids, engaging with them on their level and playing games with them. Pyrrha gives the teens some basic lessons on shooting, showing off her genuine skill and giving angry hormones an outlet. Weiss works with the adults, helping them plan out new zoning codes and managing paperwork surprisingly well, all while making white-collar humor. Midas keeps doing his shows, and encourages other people to step up and show off when he's between acts.

After a few days, the town is in MUCH better shape, both emotionally and physically. Actual Hunters come by to alleviate the pressure, and they give the team complements. On the bullhead back, Midas falls asleep. When he wakes up, his hair has been braided.

* * *

 **Dance Arc**

When they get back, Sun has shown up as a student from Haven. Blake is more openly frosty with him than canon, but he's also more reasonable than canon. Midas encourages Blake to give Sun a shot, and even offers to go with her as back up. Blake agrees, and the three of them head into town. Blake and Sun start the "date" rocky, but do a little bonding over a film (Blake read the book). The real surprise is when Midas and Sun hit it off, with actual chemistry in a hot/cold, ying/yang sort of way that ends up with them playing off each other's jokes extremely naturally. Blake comments on this when they get back, but Midas waves it off as just friends stuff.

One oddly-sexual dream later and suddenly the SI is questioning everything. Weiss had planned dancing lessons for everyone ("A Schnee will not be thrown around on the dance floor!") and the SI helps Sun figure out some of the moves with Blake in very close contact. Clarify that there are two competing wants: on the one hand, Eclipse. On the other, Sun is hot. And nice. And strong. And GDI hormones. Talks with Oobleck, and we get some exposition on the depth of the difference between Remnant and Earth Prime.

Group date, with Weiss, Neptune, Sun, Blake, Ren, Nora, SI and Pyrrha. Tries to make attraction go away via exposure therapy but the more Midas learns the better Sun gets, and conversely the less interested Blake seems. Exposure therapy fails, and a few accidents have them closer than the SI would want.

Sparring match, where Midas gets beaten, but it's close. After the match, some interesting dialogue leads Midas to realize it might be more than a crush, and when Sun asks for tips on how to ask Blake out it destroys him

Midas tries drowning out the frustration/jealousy/other in training or music or something. It doesn't work. He's sullen and depressed for the rest of day, and when Sun comes around he confesses that it's all Sun's fault. Sun doesn't realize what he means and Midas runs off.

Day of the dance. SI is hanging out on a roof with a bottle of liquor. Weiss comes by and kicks/talks some sense into him. A shower, a makeshift toga, and some last-minute advice later and he's at the dance. He interrupts Blake and Sun and asks for a dance. Sun hesitantly gives him Blake's hand, but he passes it up and takes Sun's, letting him lead.

Things are said, clarified, and generally sorted out. Sun clarifies that he doesn't feel the same way. Midas accepts it, finishes the dance, and says thanks. He joins Pyrrha as a wallflower and as a certain song comes on asks if they want to be lonely together.

* * *

 **Tournament Arc**

Round one is when team PRSM meets an old female friend from Signal. Midas flashes back, he and his counterpart on the other team strip to their drawers and the fight begins. PRSM wins, primarily because the other team hasn't been inoculated to smack talk and sudden nudity yet. To be honest, neither were Weiss or Ruby, but Pyrrha kept her cool and the three people who fought normally decided the battle.

Midas has lunch with Blake, who's become friends with Sun over the course of the build-up. There's a bit of tension between Sun and Midas, but Pyrrha defuses it with a comment on the fight. From their it descends into the discussion of tactical nudity, and things go a bit better. They end up getting drinks to round out the victory, and they all go back to their dorms buzzed. Pyrrha's clingy, but he's clingy too.

Team PRSM meets with Papa Schnee and Whitley, who are both less assholish than canon. This comes from the loss of Winter and Willow, and while they're much more openly racist than Weiss is, there is a clear and obvious love. Jaques is a changed man, and he thanks Midas for looking after his daughter. When the subject of dating brought up, Weiss says that another has their eye on Jaune. Midas blinks, turns to Pyrrha, and puts the pieces together.

RAYN wins their match, primarily on the back of Yang and Nora. Jaune does manage to lock down another student for the entire match though, and he's flushed with victory until they have to announce who moves forward: Yang and Nora. Meanwhile, Midas and Pyrrha talk. The reasons come out (fair treatment, reasonably handsome, pleasent personality, able to keep up in the ring), and while internally Midas is like _fuck, what happened to Arkos?_ , he also accepts her feelings and offers to give it a go.

After watching Sun and Neptune beat BRNZ's two, Pyrrha and Midas go out on a date. Once they are acting sufficiently awkward, the two of them use their semblances to peg all the spectators with carnival food from twenty paces away. Yang and Weiss leave under fear of ruined hair, while Nora leaves under fear of ruined Ren (by Yang). Once the spectators are gone, the two of them play carnival games, cheating and competing to see who can rack up the most ridiculous number of prizes. Midas wins, but that's only because he took the three-card monty guy for all he had and used the money to buy them dinner. At the end, there's a quick kiss, and Midas is over the moon.

Doubles: Pyrrha and Midas fight Coco and Yatsu... and _win_. Part of this is that they both have effective immunity to Coco's ranged attacks (Semblance + Skill in both cases), part of that is total melee superiority. There's a lot of super-close combat, with Pyrrha and Midas keeping Coco near Yatsu to force him to limit his swings while using Dust to keep them from running. It ends with out by Aura in both cases, and the leave triumphant and untouched, maybe a little more grabby than they need to be.

RAYN wins their fight against Nebula and Dew from NDGO, and Yang mentions how she and Nora nearly came to blows over who'd go to the singles. When this question gets thrown at Pyrrha and Midas, it turns out they both assumed they'd be the one going to singles. Cue challeneges, cue posturing, cue duel at noon tomorrow. Midas says that he'll use his trick, Pyrrha says to prepare for her own. Three different Checkov's Guns are set up, with Pyrrha remaining mum about her own plan.

Duel day arrives and team SSSN, RAYN, and the Schnees are in the stands, along with a few second-string reporters for the bigger papers. Goodwitch agrees to oversee it, and thing pop off.

Key points:  
Midas tries to cover the battlefield in steam. Pyrrha counters by tossing metal filings into the air, working them into Midas's clothes to track him. They're both fighting blind until Goodwitch waves away the mist, but that doesn't actually stop them.

Midas breath fire at Pyrrha, but she remembers from his first fight and doesn't get caught out.

Pyrrha catching some of his weapons with open hands and tossing them out of the ring, limiting his offense.

Midas uses a _fucking lightsaber_ , invented by the nerds in the Atlesian military after the first _Star Wars_ came out, and cuts Pyrrha's shield in half. It won't plow through Aura, but it'll hurt and it's not magnetic. So she shows her own trump card.

Pyrrha uses her magnetism to spin up a mini generator on her back, running a current through her weapon, making it immune to being cut in half.

By the end, Midas is in a black cloak, spinning around like crazy with a red glowing sword. Pyrrha's spear is blue with voltage, and people are calling it "literally the best fight." Both of them have low aura, and they go in for the final exhange.

The next day, Midas wakes up sore to an empty bed. We learn that he lost. Pyrrha is putting on a scarf and Midas hugs her from behind. They share a kiss, and we head to the stands. It's Pyrrha versus Sun, who is looking a _lot_ more nervous. When he asks Weiss about it, she shares that the news reporters showed their fight. It was far and away the scariest one so far, and people are already talking about Beacon's Two monsters. Meanwhile, Sun is trying to fight Pyrrha, but she's simply too good. Yang adds that people were suprised to see the invincible girl take a blow, but Midas didn't get off easy. After all, he's got a chain of bruises on his neck. Ruby sees this and says that those are hickeys, not bruises. Yang pales and asks her sister where she learned that word, but Weiss looks between Pyrrha (who's beating the stuffing out of Sun) and Midas. Midas smiles and stretches, revealing a number of marks on his chest that look too regular and surface level to be from the brawl. Pyrrha finishes Sun, untouched, and salutes the crowd with her spear. Midas dashes down to the locker rooms, and when she pulls off the scarf she too has a few bruises. Midas joking asks if she's ashamed, but Pyrrha denies it. She just doesn't want people to think that Sun managed to land a blow. Close on a kiss.

* * *

 **Weapon**

Vaudeville Chandelier

This is a Dust weapon, with eight main one-handed parts:

Hook w/ cord: Water  
Axe: Air  
Flamberge dagger: Fire  
Ice Axe: Ice  
Hammer: Gravity  
Pick: Earth  
Tuning Fork knife: lighting  
Convex knife: general projectiles

All individual models can clip onto the cord for added reach, much like Gambol Shroud. Typically they're all attached to the cord outside of combat situations, hanging on him like a belt. In combat, he juggles several at once to have high versatility, occasionally using his foot and the cord to attack from an unexpected angle.


End file.
